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34. <title>Supreme Court Appears Split Over Abortion Care During Emergencies</title>
35. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/supreme-court-appears-split-over-abortion-care-during-emergencies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=supreme-court-appears-split-over-abortion-care-during-emergencies</link>
36. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/supreme-court-appears-split-over-abortion-care-during-emergencies/#respond</comments>
38. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kelcie Moseley-Morris /  Colorado Newsline]]></dc:creator>
39. <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:51:33 +0000</pubDate>
40. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
41. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
42. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
43. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
44. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
45. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
46. <category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>
47. <category><![CDATA[abortion]]></category>
48. <category><![CDATA[dobbs decision]]></category>
49. <category><![CDATA[reproductive rights]]></category>
50. <category><![CDATA[roe v. wade]]></category>
51. <category><![CDATA[scotus]]></category>
52. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295818</guid>
53.  
54. <description><![CDATA[<p>A decision looms on whether Idaho’s abortion ban would allow persecution of doctors who terminated a pregnancy during a health emergency.</p>
55. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/supreme-court-appears-split-over-abortion-care-during-emergencies/">Supreme Court Appears Split Over Abortion Care During Emergencies</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
56. ]]></description>
57. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>U.S. Supreme Court justices</strong> spent two hours Wednesday morning debating whether a federal law about emergency treatment encompasses abortion care even in states with strict abortion bans, with no clear indication of how they may ultimately rule.</p><p>A decision could come as soon as the end of June whether Idaho’s near-total abortion ban means doctors who might need to terminate a pregnancy during a health emergency would be protected from prosecution under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, a federal law that requires hospitals to treat patients who come to an emergency room regardless of their ability to pay. That includes treatment to prevent serious damage to bodily functions.</p><p>If the court decides the law does not provide that protection, then hospitals and doctors in Idaho have said they will have to continue<a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/loss-federal-protection-idaho-spurs-pregnant-patients-plan-emergency-air-transport" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"> transferring patients out of state</a> for that treatment. Since January, when the court decided to take the case and struck down an injunction that provided protection under EMTALA, transfers out of state for pregnancy complications that may require termination increased from one in 2023 to six over the course of four months.</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left">
58. <blockquote>
59. <p>If the court decides the law does not provide that protection, then hospitals and doctors in Idaho have said they will have to continue<a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/loss-federal-protection-idaho-spurs-pregnant-patients-plan-emergency-air-transport" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"> transferring patients out of state</a> for that treatment.</p>
60. </blockquote>
61. </figure><p>The court’s liberal wing — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — ​​questioned Idaho Deputy Attorney General Josh Turner about what EMTALA explicitly says about stabilizing treatment and whether abortion procedures fall into that definition when complications occur before a fetus can survive outside of the womb.</p><p>Turner argued that Idaho’s law should supersede federal law in the case of abortion procedures, even if it goes against commonly accepted medical care standards.</p><p>Sotomayor rejected that argument.</p><p>“There is no state licensing law that would permit the state to say, ‘Don’t treat diabetics with insulin. Treat them only with pills,’” Sotomayor said. “Federal law would say you can’t do that.”</p><p>She said federal law requires treatment of a person who is at risk of serious medical complications without that treatment, but Idaho’s law does not provide that much leeway.</p><div id="ad_slot_wrapper_22724279127_1" class="max-w-td m-auto p-6 ad-slot--wrapper ad-slot--wrapper--article-hrec-1">
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64. </div>
65. </div>
66. <p>“Idaho law says the doctor has to determine not that there’s really a serious medical condition, but that the person will die. That’s a huge difference, counsel,” she said.</p><p>Idaho’s abortion ban went into effect in August 2022, a few months after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protection for abortion access and allowing states to regulate it instead. Providers who are prosecuted for performing an abortion are subject to two to five years in prison plus the loss of their medical license, and they are also subject to civil enforcement laws by any family members related to the person who had the abortion.</p><h3 class="wp-block-heading">Doctors are subject to prosecutorial discretion in Idaho, deputy AG says</h3><p>The justices repeatedly asked Turner to identify situations where a doctor might provide an abortion as part of stabilizing care and it would not be allowed under Idaho law. He continued to point to the state’s exception to save a patient’s life and referred to a doctor’s “good faith medical judgment” being enough to avoid prosecution.</p><p>The government listed nine emergency medical conditions where termination of the pregnancy may be the recommended treatment to stabilize a patient’s condition, including when the water breaks before a fetus is viable or when a patient experiences uncontrolled high blood pressure or bleeding. Idaho doctors identified one recent “traumatic” case when a patient had to wait until advanced infection set in before the doctor felt secure enough to end the pregnancy. Others are sending patients out of state as soon as termination might be needed to avoid having to wait until they meet qualifications under Idaho’s exception to prevent death.</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left">
67. <blockquote>
68. <p>“The doctors can’t provide the care until they can conclude that a prosecutor looking over their shoulder won’t second guess that maybe it wasn’t really necessary to prevent death.”</p>
69. </blockquote>
70. </figure><p>Justice Amy Coney Barrett, considered one of the court’s more conservative members, said Turner was hedging in his answers and asked what happens if another doctor or prosecutor reaches a contrary conclusion about what the appropriate medical treatment should have been.</p><p>“That, your honor, is the nature of prosecutorial discretion,” Turner said.</p><p>Barrett also asked if Idaho had released any legal guidance about its abortion laws, the way a federal health agency might issue guidance. Turner said the “guiding star” is the Idaho Supreme Court’s opinion from August 2022 interpreting the abortion statute, where it said the law does not require imminence of death or medical certainty for a physician to intervene. The Idaho court also said another doctor’s opinion would only be considered if they accused the doctor who performed the abortion of acting in bad faith.</p><p>U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said for those reasons, women in Idaho are not getting the treatment they need, often in already-tragic situations where a wanted pregnancy is lost because of complications.</p><div id="ad_slot_wrapper_22724432281_1" class="max-w-td m-auto p-6 ad-slot--wrapper ad-slot--wrapper--article-hrec-2">
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73. </div>
74. </div>
75. <p>“They are getting airlifted to Salt Lake City and to neighboring states where there are health exceptions in their laws,” she said. “The doctors can’t provide the care until they can conclude that a prosecutor looking over their shoulder won’t second guess that maybe it wasn’t really necessary to prevent death.”</p><h3 class="wp-block-heading">Conservatives ask about conscience objections, expansion of ‘emergency’ definition</h3><p>The more conservative justices offered mixed questions to Prelogar, who argued on behalf of the government. Justice Neil Gorsuch posed questions related to the federal Supremacy Clause about when federal law can override state law in the context of medicine, while Barrett asked whether conscience exceptions exist for doctors who don’t feel comfortable terminating a pregnancy even in emergency situations. Or if a hospital did not want to provide the procedure, such as a Catholic hospital, would be exempt under EMTALA for conscience reasons. One of Idaho’s largest hospital systems, Saint Alphonsus, is a Catholic hospital.</p><p>Prelogar confirmed that yes, individual doctors and entire medical entities qualify for those conscience objections and are therefore not required to perform an abortion under EMTALA. But at a hospital that did not have a blanket objection, they would take individual objections into consideration for appropriate staffing so that there is always someone available to provide that care if necessary.</p><p>“If the question is, could you force an individual doctor to step in over a conscience objection, the answer is no, and I want to be really clear about that,” Prelogar said.</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left">
76. <blockquote>
77. <p>“There can be grave mental health emergencies, but EMTALA could never require pregnancy termination as the stabilizing care.&#8221;</p>
78. </blockquote>
79. </figure><p>Justice Sam Alito also asked Prelogar if EMTALA could be understood to apply to other emergency situations such as a mental health emergency, if someone was expressing suicidal thoughts and wanted to end their pregnancy to resolve those thoughts. Idaho’s legal representation, conservative religious law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, argued in its brief to the court that a ruling in favor of EMTALA protection would allow such situations to occur. Prelogar said no, the proper treatment would be to administer medications to alleviate the suicidal thoughts.</p><p>“There can be grave mental health emergencies, but EMTALA could never require pregnancy termination as the stabilizing care … because that wouldn’t do anything to address the underlying brain chemistry issue that’s causing the mental health emergency in the first place,” Prelogar said. “If she happens to be pregnant, it would be incredibly unethical to terminate her pregnancy. She might not be in a position to give any informed consent.”</p><h3 class="wp-block-heading">Demonstrators, legislators from Idaho comment on court case</h3><p>Hundreds of abortion rights advocates, medical professionals and two Idaho legislators gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning before the arguments advocating for the court to uphold EMTALA as a guiding principle regardless of state abortion laws. On the anti-abortion rights side, Idaho-based crisis pregnancy center Stanton Healthcare argued the case was about forcing states with abortion bans to perform them. Danielle Versluys, the organization’s chief operating officer, said women with complications should deliver a baby naturally, regardless of the circumstances.</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left">
80. <blockquote>
81. <p>“If the Supreme Court does not give us EMTALA back, there will be no lifeline for women at least until 2025.”</p>
82. </blockquote>
83. </figure><p>“The outcome is the same — a dead baby — but the difference is one is natural, and the other is not,” she said. “And one allows the woman the natural process to give birth and to grieve, and the other one is unnatural.”</p><p>Rep. Ilana Rubel, a Democrat and the legislature’s minority leader, told States Newsroom the case is a waste of state taxpayer dollars.</p><p>“It is, frankly, stunning that leaders in our state think that this is something they want so badly they were willing to take it to the Supreme Court to deprive women of appropriate care in medical emergencies,” Rubel said. And with the Idaho Legislature adjourned for the year, she added, “If the Supreme Court does not give us EMTALA back, there will be no lifeline for women at least until 2025.”</p><p><em>States Newsroom reproductive rights reporter Sofia Resnick contributed to this report.</em><a href="https://coloradonewsline.com/donate" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://coloradonewsline.com/subscribe" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
84. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/supreme-court-appears-split-over-abortion-care-during-emergencies/">Supreme Court Appears Split Over Abortion Care During Emergencies</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
85. ]]></content:encoded>
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93. </item>
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95. <title>Edward Said Warned Us About Anti-Palestinian McCarthyism</title>
96. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/edward-said-warned-us-about-anti-palestinian-mccarthyism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=edward-said-warned-us-about-anti-palestinian-mccarthyism</link>
97. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/edward-said-warned-us-about-anti-palestinian-mccarthyism/#respond</comments>
99. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Seraj Assi /  Common Dreams]]></dc:creator>
100. <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:35:07 +0000</pubDate>
101. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
102. <category><![CDATA[Belief & Religion]]></category>
103. <category><![CDATA[DEIB]]></category>
104. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
105. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
106. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
107. <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
108. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
109. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
110. <category><![CDATA[columbia university]]></category>
111. <category><![CDATA[gaza protests]]></category>
112. <category><![CDATA[mccarthyism]]></category>
113. <category><![CDATA[Minouche Shafik]]></category>
114. <category><![CDATA[palestinian]]></category>
115. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295805</guid>
116.  
117. <description><![CDATA[<p>The Columbia professor’s legacy is a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy and moral corruption of U.S. liberal institutions.</p>
118. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/edward-said-warned-us-about-anti-palestinian-mccarthyism/">Edward Said Warned Us About Anti-Palestinian McCarthyism</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
119. ]]></description>
120. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
121. <p><strong>Students across the United States</strong> are rising up against Israel’s genocide in <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/gaza" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Gaza</a>, bringing to memory the student movements of the 1960s. From Columbia to Brown, from Yale to Harvard, students are staging sit-ins, hunger strikes, class walkouts, and interfaith prayers, demanding an end to U.S. support for <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/israel" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Israel</a> and the complicity of their academic institutions in the ongoing genocide.</p>
122.  
123.  
124.  
125. <p>While some U.S. institutions are treading a delicate path, the Columbia University administration, led by President Minouche Shafik, has violently cracked down on its own students, summoning the NYPD to mass arrest over 100 students, and suspending others with a 15-minute notice. In an unprecedented brutal crackdown on free speech on campus, the police destroyed solidarity encampments and student belongings, while charging arrested students with “trespassing” on the campus that they are charged a whopping tuition of more than $60,000 a year to attend!</p>
126.  
127.  
128.  
129. <p>In its attempt to appease far-right extremists in Congress, and to save Columbia from “being cursed by God,” as a Republican Congressman <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSSGu-cRtVU" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">warned</a> Shafik, Columbia has sided with genocide, thus undermining its own legacy of safeguarding free speech and peaceful protest on campus.</p>
130.  
131.  
132.  
133. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Said was a victim of anti-Palestinian intimidation himself. His office at Columbia was occasionally <a href="https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1782048086589604128" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">raided</a> and vandalized.</p></blockquote></figure>
134.  
135.  
136.  
137. <p>The violence has backfired, as hundreds of students continue to protest at Columbia, sparking a ripple effect across U.S. campuses, and defying what they see as a growing McCarthyism in U.S. academia. An early target of this academic McCarthyism was the prominent Palestinian-American intellectual and distinguished Columbia Professor Edward Said, whose writings on postcolonialism, humanism, and democratic criticism are required readings at Columbia and across the humanities.</p>
138.  
139.  
140.  
141. <p>Said was a victim of anti-Palestinian intimidation himself. His office at Columbia was occasionally&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel/status/1782048086589604128" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">raided</a>&nbsp;and vandalized. He received several death threats and was smeared with terrorism accusations and spied on by students and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/aipac" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">AIPAC</a>&nbsp;agents. Shortly before his death, Said became the target of a vicious academic persecution, which he survived only because Columbia still had a shred of academic and moral integrity at the time.</p>
142.  
143.  
144.  
145. <p>In July 2000, Said went to South Lebanon on a solidarity tour, where he hurled a rock toward an Israeli guardhouse from the Lebanese border, which he described as “a symbolic gesture of joy” to mark the end of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. A photographer caught the action, featuring Said with his arm reached far behind him, ready to throw. The Israeli lobby, led by Anti-Defamation League, called on Columbia to punish Said. Columbia refused to be intimidated, though it took the administration two months of eerie silence to respond. In its five-page letter response, the university said that Said’s action was protected under the principles of academic freedom. Citing John Stuart Mill as well as from the Columbia Faculty Handbook, the letter asserted:</p>
146.  
147.  
148.  
149. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
150. <p>There is nothing more fundamental to a university than the protection of the free discourse of individuals who should feel free to express their views without fear of the chilling effect of a politically dominant ideology&#8230; This matter cuts to the heart of what are fundamental values at a great university.</p>
151. </blockquote>
152.  
153.  
154.  
155. <p>In defense of Said, the letter added: “If we are to deny Professor Said the protection to write and speak freely, whose speech will next be suppressed and who will be the inquisitor who determines who should have a right to speak his or her mind without fear of retribution?”</p>
156.  
157.  
158.  
159. <p>The era of moral clarity and intellectual integrity in academia is now unraveling amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The tragic irony is that the current atmosphere of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism on U.S. campuses—led by an unlikely coalition of far-right Republicans, mainstream media, and liberal academic institutions—was foreseen by none other than Said himself. In his seminal essay, “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims” (1979), Said warned:</p>
160.  
161.  
162.  
163. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
164. <p>The special, one might even call it the privileged, place in this discussion of the United States is impressive, for all sorts of reasons. In no other country, except Israel, is Zionism enshrined as an unquestioned good, and in no other country is there so strong a conjuncture of powerful institutions and interests—the press, the liberal intelligentsia, the military-industrial complex, the academic community, labor unions—for whom […] uncritical support of Israel and Zionism enhances their domestic as well as international standing.”</p>
165. </blockquote>
166.  
167.  
168.  
169. <p>Presaging the rise of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism in academia, Said detected a state of academic repression and campus policing in which Palestinians “have no permission to narrative” and are increasingly demonized and silenced in the name of fighting antisemitism—a loaded concept that has become a shield for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Perceptively, Said warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims. He understood that systematically inflating antisemitism with the critique of Zionism was feeding anti-Palestinian sentiments in U.S. academic and media discourse. He further warned:</p>
170.  
171.  
172.  
173. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
174. <p>One must admit, however, that all liberals and even most “radicals” have been unable to overcome the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Any wellmeaning person can thus oppose South African or American racism and at the same time tacitly support Zionist racial discrimination against non-Jews in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/palestine" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Palestine</a>. The almost total absence of any handily available historical knowledge from non-Zionist sources, the dissemination by the media of malicious simplifications (e.g., Jews vs. Arabs), the cynical opportunism of various Zionist pressure groups, the tendency endemic to university intellectuals uncritically to repeat cant phrases and political clichés (this is the role Gramsci assigned to traditional intellectuals, that of being “experts in legitimation”), the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain of what Jews did to their victims, in an age of genocidal extermination of Jews—all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcement of almost unanimous support for Israel.</p>
175. </blockquote>
176.  
177.  
178.  
179. <p>The assault on Columbia students is an attack on constitutional rights and the basic tenets of democracy. It’s deplorable that the one of the most violent crackdown on student protests in U.S. history is coinciding with one of the worst genocides in recent memory, which has killed over 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them children, and displaced nearly two million others.</p>
180.  
181.  
182.  
183. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Said warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims.</p></blockquote></figure>
184.  
185.  
186.  
187. <p>One day after the mass arrests at Columbia, Palestinians in Gaza&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1782037121022235002?t=gf-SSW3usawbhTWe9QoQBg&amp;s=08" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">unearthed</a>&nbsp;large mass graves at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, containing hundreds of civilians and patients who were massacred or buried alive by Israel. More deplorable, from the young generation’s standpoint, is that this genocide is being backed and sustained by U.S. weapons and tax money, diplomatic support, and media and academic complicity. (The Biden administration is preparing to send its largest military aid package to Israel in U.S. history, with bipartisan blessing.) Despite massive protests, U.S. colleges have refused to divest from Israel over its genocidal war in Gaza (with few notable exceptions that include Rutgers and UC Davis.) Several universities, including Columbia, have suspended the chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.</p>
188.  
189.  
190.  
191. <p>Edward Said’s legacy reads today as a scathing condemnation of the hypocrisy of U.S. liberal institutions, their moral corruption, and the hollowness of the very values that they profess to teach. This irony is best illustrated by a Columbia student’s protest sign, which read:</p>
192.  
193.  
194.  
195. <p>“Columbia, why require me to read Prof. Edward Said, if you don’t want me to use it?”</p>
196. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/edward-said-warned-us-about-anti-palestinian-mccarthyism/">Edward Said Warned Us About Anti-Palestinian McCarthyism</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
197. ]]></content:encoded>
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207. <title>The Whole Dam Truth</title>
208. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-whole-dam-truth/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-whole-dam-truth</link>
209. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-whole-dam-truth/#respond</comments>
211. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Christopher Ketcham]]></dc:creator>
212. <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:21:09 +0000</pubDate>
213. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
214. <category><![CDATA[DEIB]]></category>
215. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
216. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
217. <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
218. <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category>
219. <category><![CDATA[Cree]]></category>
220. <category><![CDATA[hydropower]]></category>
221. <category><![CDATA[indigenous rights]]></category>
222. <category><![CDATA[James Bay Hydroelectric Project]]></category>
223. <category><![CDATA[megadam]]></category>
224. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295572</guid>
225.  
226. <description><![CDATA[<p>Hydropower projects are far from climate neutral and the downstream threats to indigenous sovereignty, biodiversity and marine ecosystems are significant and growing.</p>
227. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-whole-dam-truth/">The Whole Dam Truth</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
228. ]]></description>
229. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
230. <p class="has-drop-cap">In the annals of decarbonization, few tales of progress are as chipper as the one New York City has told about its newly minted partnership with the hydropower industry. The keystone in the partnership is the<a href="https://chpexpress.com/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> Champlain Hudson Power Express</a>, a 339-mile <a href="https://chpexpress.com/about-transmission-developers/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">privately owned</a> high-voltage transmission line to provide the city with electrons from the sprawling hydropower complexes of Canadian energy company Hydro-Québec. With the CHPE now under construction and slated to become fully operational by the spring of 2026, it has been celebrated as part of New York City’s grand transition to renewables — a “historic milestone,” said New York Mayor Eric Adams, “in our mobilization against climate change.” Elijah Hutchinson, executive director of&nbsp;Adams’ Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, told me in an email that the linking of the city’s grid to Hydro-Québec was “critical” to meet the goals laid out in the historic Climate Leadership &amp; Community Protection Act that New York passed in 2019, which mandates that the state cut greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030 from 1990 levels, and 85% by 2050. New York Governor Kathy Hochul promises CHPE will “pav[e] the way for thousands of high-quality jobs, spurring billions in economic activity, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, and ushering in a cleaner, greener New York for all.” Green groups that might be expected in other circumstances to oppose industrialization of the Hudson River — the project involves trenching the transmission line into a 90-mile stretch of the river bed — have opted to support CHPE, including Scenic Hudson and Trout Unlimited.&nbsp;</p>
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234. <p>The claims about hydropower as a clean, green, sustainable power source issue with equal aplomb from government regulators, enviro journalists, climate academics and green-grid design wizards. Stanford engineer Mark Z. Jacobson sees hydropower as the <a href="https://kencaldeira.wordpress.com/2018/02/28/mzj-hydro-explainer/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">linchpin</a> for the realization of his <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CountriesWWS.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">vision</a> of an advanced industrial society in which 100% of electricity comes from a combination of wind, solar and water.&nbsp; Hydro, said one recent CNBC report, is “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/02/why-hydropower-is-the-worlds-most-overlooked-renewable.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">the forgotten giant of clean energy</a>,” because it’s already responsible for over 30% of renewable power generation in the U.S and <a href="https://www.theigc.org/blogs/water-and-power-mega-dams-mega-damage" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">roughly 70% </a>globally.&nbsp;Michael Gerrard, faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University’s law school and a vocal supporter of CHPE, claims that without Canadian hydropower New York will have to rely on more natural gas to maintain a reliable electrical supply. Absent what he describes as “a mind-boggling amount of new wind and solar, together with the associated transmission lines and storage facilities” — construction of which is unlikely in the near term — achieving the decarbonization goals the state has set for its electric grid will be impossible without help from Hydro-Québec. “From a climate perspective,” Gerrard told me, “hydropower is much superior to natural gas power.” Climate writer David Roberts agreed, writing in an email, “I&#8217;m a big hydro fan! I think most clean energy folks are, notwithstanding some concerns about salmon and such.”&nbsp;</p>
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238. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The mega-reservoirs needed for industrial-scale hydroelectric production have displaced as many as 80 million people worldwide and adversely impacted some 470 million people living downstream of dam sites.</p></blockquote></figure>
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241.  
242. <p>Viewed through the prism of fossil fuel emissions, it’s true that large-scale hydropower looks to be one of the more attractive options in the industrial energy lineup. But when viewed in a wider context, one that includes the “concerns about salmon and such,” a more complex, and uglier, picture emerges.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
243.  
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245.  
246. <p>According to the World Commission on Dams, the mega-reservoirs needed for industrial-scale hydroelectric production have displaced as many as 80 million people worldwide and adversely impacted some 470 million people living downstream of dam sites. The U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that “resettlement for the displaced and the consequences on downstream livelihoods have led to the impoverishment of millions.” Indigenous people have “disproportionately suffered from these impacts in addition to the loss of their territories and cultural integrity,” according to the human rights agency.</p>
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250. <p>Mega-reservoirs for hydropower have also displaced and destroyed wildlife, causing <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2015/07/mega-dams-doing-drastic-harm-to-tropical-biodiversity-study/amp/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">biodiversity collapses</a> in which fish and other aquatic populations have disappeared almost overnight. The reservoirs have precipitated out of soils a poison, methylmercury, that bioaccumulates in fish and game that Indigenous groups, particularly in the boreal forests of Canada, depend on for survival outside the industrial food system.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
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253.  
254. <p>This is only some of what we know for certain are the social and environmental costs of industrial-scale hydropower. Other likely costs remain unaccounted for, because concerted scientific studies haven’t been done. It’s known, for example, that by blocking the natural flow of rivers, dams prevent vital minerals from being scoured off river bottoms and banks to be deposited as nutrients in marine food webs. There’s no scientific consensus about the effect this nutrient starvation has had, say, on the largest coastal fisheries of the North Atlantic — the Georges Bank, the Grand Banks — but the evidence leans toward the very bad. In the Arctic, water vapor emissions from mega-reservoirs have caused regional increases in air temperature that may have contributed to the evanescing of ice on the Arctic Ocean, which in turn has accelerated planetary warming. If in fact water vapor emissions from mega-reservoirs can be tied to a warmed Arctic Ocean, hydropower in the Northern Hemisphere may be seen as merely another industrial culprit in climate collapse.</p>
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256.  
257.  
258. <p>Hydropower’s consequences for Indigenous people explains the opposition to CHPE from the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. Among the group’s reasons: Hydro-Québec’s “displacement of Indigenous communities, and the potential exposure of Indigenous communities to toxic organic mercury levels from dams,” EJA’s energy planner Daniel Chu explained in an email. The nonprofit Hudson Riverkeeper similarly has denounced CHPE for “bring[ing] power from massive hydroelectric dams in eastern Canada that have a long, devastating history of destroying rivers and damaging Indigenous communities.”&nbsp;</p>
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262. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Bring[ing] power from massive hydroelectric dams in eastern Canada that have a long, devastating history of destroying rivers and damaging Indigenous communities.”</p></blockquote></figure>
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266. <p>Representatives from Indigenous tribes and groups with Indigenous ties across Quebec — including the Kitigan Zibi Anishnabeg, the Lac Simon Anishnabeg Nation, the Algonquin Anishnabeg Nation Tribal Council,&nbsp; the Cree from Mistissini, and the groups Labrador Land Protectors and Grand Riverkeeper Labrador — have signaled their staunch opposition to CHPE. For the Indigenous who have been swept under by the hydropower mega-complexes, their subjugation is central to what Daniel Macfarlane, a professor at Western Michigan University specializing in water history and policy and the environment, calls the “hydraulic imperialism” of the boreal forests, “whereby the Canadian state used waterways to exercise control” of vast landscapes, with the goal of facilitating industrial and agricultural development.</p>
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269.  
270. <p>Over the last 40 years of its epic run of dam construction, the “immoral dealings” of Hydro-Québec — a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Quebec provincial government — “has cost my people everything; our heritage, our culture, our way of life and our future,” Lucien Wabanonik, a former grand chief of the Anishnabeg Nation Tribal Council, in Lac Simon, Québec, <a href="https://www.sunjournal.com/2021/02/21/lucien-wabanonik-my-people-were-robbed-ignored-by-hydro-quebec-quebec-government/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">wrote</a> in a recent op-ed. &nbsp;“New Yorkers need to know what’s happening in First Nation territories with hydroelectricity,” he said.&nbsp;Will Nicholls, a 61-year-old Cree journalist and editor-in-chief of Nationmagazinein Montreal, told me, “In our area, megadams are not the same as when you flood a narrow valley. Here they flood thousands of square kilometers. They’re creating inland seas!&nbsp;I will not be able to take my children to fish on those flooded lands. Those places are gone forever. I know that I was among the last of my people to drop a fishing line in those rivers.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
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274. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295573" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-270x180.jpg 270w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-405x270.jpg 405w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-607x405.jpg 607w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP9008081318-877x585.jpg 877w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">In this Aug. 8, 1990 file photo, part of Hydro-Quebec&#8217;s James Bay project is seen. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Ulbrich)</figcaption></figure>
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277.  
278. <p>Modern dam building almost always involves disruption of Indigenous lifeways, according to Philip Fearnside, a research professor at the National Institute of Research in Amazonia in Manaus, Brazil, and an expert on hydropower. “Part of this is inherent in this energy option: concentrated impacts on riverside residents and indigenous peoples … versus diffuse benefits to distant beneficiaries,”&nbsp;Fearnside observed in a 2020 study of environmental justice and the hydropower industry in Amazonia. The benefits of the dams “accrue to urban consumers and especially to industries&#8230; This aspect is often written off by dam builders with the shibboleth ‘You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.’” Of course, Fearnside added, this logic “is much easier to apply when the eggs to be broken refer to poor people … far from the centers of power and political influence.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
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282. <p class="has-drop-cap">Holding 20% of the freshwater on Earth, Canada has exploited with great zeal its hydrological advantage. Today, the country produces 10% of the world’s hydroelectric power — behind only China and Brazil — and over half of that comes from a single province, Quebec, where Hydro-Québec operates hundreds of dams and impoundment reservoirs and scores of generating stations. The system’s most productive hydropower dam is named for celebrated Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa, Canada’s most devoted dam builder during the 1980s and 1990s. “Quebec is a vast hydroelectric plant in-the-bud,” Bourassa wrote in his 1985 book “Power from the North,” “and every day millions of potential kilowatt hours flow downhill and out to sea. What a waste!&#8221; His explicit goal was to create a surplus of power for sale to energy-profligate U.S. states abutting Canada.&nbsp;</p>
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286. <p>Bourassa’s brainchild, the James Bay Hydroelectric Project, involved multiple hydropower dams on the La Grande River, including the flagship 5,600-megawatt Robert-Bourassa Generating Facility, and several others that diverted massive volumes of water from the Rupert, Eastmain, Opinaca and Caniapiscau rivers. By redirecting as many adjacent waterways as possible, engineers could carve out a single artificial basin that would augment the flow through generation sites on the La Grande. The area the project flooded was all wilderness, sacred to the James Bay Cree, and some 2.5 million acres of it disappeared forever. By the mid-1980s, the river that the Cree had known for thousands of years became, overnight, a technological artifact. Today, when the water in the La Grande finally reaches James Bay, a shallow marine inlet of Hudson Bay, its hydrograph — its seasonal flow cycle — has been irrevocably altered. This has had profound effects on the James Bay ecosystem and on the lifeways of the Cree who, only decades ago, lived mostly outside the industrial food system, surviving by hunting, trapping and fishing.&nbsp;</p>
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290. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>By the mid-1980s, the river that the Cree had known for thousands of years became, overnight, a technological artifact.</p></blockquote></figure>
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294. <p>Last autumn, I reached out to talk with Indigenous researchers in Canada who have been applying traditional ecological knowledge to understand the ecological and climatic effects of megadams. I ended up talking with a 74-year-old Cree trapper named George Lameboy, founder and president of the Chisasibi Eeyou Resource and Research Institute, which operates at a remote camp north of the Cree town of Chisasibi, off the east coast of James Bay. The camp, located at one of 10 Cree traplines along the coast, consists of three wood-heated shacks. There’s a lab, a dormitory and a dining hall, which can also double as sleeping quarters. In the winter months, the snowbound site is reachable only after two hours on a snowmobile out of Chisasibi.&nbsp;CERRI has a singular purpose: to study the environmental effects of the derangement of the La Grande River’s hydrograph.&nbsp;</p>
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298. <p>“Here it’s traditional knowledge that’s leading Western science,” Lameboy told me when I reached him via satellite link.&nbsp; “I’m sitting here one mile from the place where I was born, on the Kapsaoui River. I have trapped here all my life. I know this land. That’s what we’re tapping into.”&nbsp;</p>
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301.  
302. <p>When the dams arose on the La Grande River, he said, there were odd and subtle changes on the landscape and in the wildlife. The direction of the wind changed along the coast of the bay, and there was a different taste in the fish. “Anyone in my age bracket will tell you that with the La Grande complex, one of the first things that changed was wind direction. Why? We don’t know. The quality of fish has gone down. It rots and goes bad.&nbsp;Cisco, lake white fish, speckled trout — they do not have the same richness of taste. The advantage of being 74 years old is to know the difference in that taste. Right now, Western science has not been able to give us full answers to what we’re seeing.”&nbsp;</p>
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306. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="701" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-1024x701.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295578" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-1024x701.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-300x205.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-768x526.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-263x180.jpg 263w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-394x270.jpg 394w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-591x405.jpg 591w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064-854x585.jpg 854w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP911008064.jpg 1992w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Cree Chief Matthew Coon Come speaks at a news conference in New York Oct. 8,1991 calling for cancellation of the Hydro-Quebec power project to deliver electricity to New York City. The Cree have fought against the James Bay Project for decades. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)</figcaption></figure>
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310. <p>One of Lameboy’s chief concerns is plummeting populations of marine birds. As early as 1990, the National Audubon Society had warned that the James Bay project would likely imperil avian habitat. With its extensive coastal marshes and intertidal flats, its critical habitat for shorebirds and waterfowl that migrate between northern breeding grounds and southern wintering areas, the birds “flock there by the millions in spring, summer and fall to feed, molt or nest,” said a 1990 Audubon Society report. “In many ways, James Bay is the northern equivalent of tropical rainforests.”&nbsp; The report predicted widespread decline of the birds once the La Grande River was dammed.&nbsp;</p>
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314. <p>So it came to pass. After 1990, with the completion of the James Bay Project, geese populations started a long collapse, according to Lameboy. Geese are an important part of the traditional Cree diet. “The government says we overharvested, we killed too many. We think it’s the dams, because the dams are destroying the food supply for the geese.”</p>
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318. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Among the immediate effects of the James Bay Project was the death of some 10,000 caribou that got trapped in rising water in the drawdown zone and were swept away.</p></blockquote></figure>
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322. <p>Dante Torio, a marine biologist who works with Lameboy, says the geese decline is tied to failing eelgrass beds. Eelgrass has adapted to highly saline water and a particular type of river-deposited sediment. The dams on the La Grande River have upended the natural regime of salinity and sedimentation in which eelgrass thrived.&nbsp;</p>
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324.  
325.  
326. <p>Other bird species, as the Audubon researchers predicted, seem to be disappearing from James Bay. According to Lameboy, populations of guillemot sea birds, red-throated loons and Atlantic brants — all traditional to the Cree diet — have fallen to the point they are rarely seen. “Was it coincidence that these bird species began collapsing right after the La Grande complex went into operation? We don’t think so,” Lameboy said.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
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329.  
330. <p>By deranging a river’s hydrograph, dams can extend a zone of biological disorder for hundreds of miles along riverbanks. This occurs through what is referred to as the drawdown zone, or the land area frequently exposed to the air (and just as often submerged again) when reservoir levels rise and fall at rapid intervals as energy demand changes. Among the immediate effects of the James Bay Project was the death of some 10,000 caribou that got trapped in rising water in the drawdown zone and were swept away. These drastic changes in water levels lay waste to riverbank ecosystems, known as the riparian areas. It’s in the richly diverse riparian area that insects lay eggs and hatch their broods, amphibians nest and spawn, birds feed on insects, predators come to hunt and drink. But with unstable water levels, the biotic community is also made unstable, and descends into chaos, and over time the riparian is abandoned and becomes a ghost landscape.&nbsp;</p>
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334. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295783" style="width:841px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-300x225.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-240x180.jpg 240w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-360x270.jpg 360w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-540x405.jpg 540w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-780x585.jpg 780w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GeorgeLameboy2024-rotated.jpg 1632w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">George Lameboy, a Cree trapper, is founder and president of the Chisasibi Eeyou Resource and Research Institute, which studies the environmental effects of the distortion of the La Grande River’s seasonal flow caused by the James Bay Project. Photo courtesy of CERRI.</figcaption></figure>
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337.  
338. <p>Rivers are the lifeblood of oceans, and there’s plenty of evidence worldwide that dams have decimated coastal marine ecosystems by strangling the rivers that feed them.&nbsp; In a 2022 survey, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/10/5974" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">found</a> that dams reduced sediment transport by as much as 92%, intercepted between 42% and 93% of all river nutrients, and slowed water velocity to such an extent that dammed rivers <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236628400_Silicon_Retention_in_River_Basins_Far-reaching_Effects_on_Biogeochemistry_and_Aquatic_Food_Webs_in_Coastal_Marine_Environments" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">no longer effectively dissolve silicon</a> from the weathering of rocks on land. &nbsp; Delivered to the sea, silicon nourishes the most common and important type of phytoplankton, the diatoms, which provide up to 40% of plant biomass in the marine food chain.&nbsp; Diatoms, floating near the ocean’s surface, are the green pastures without which marine wildlife could not thrive.&nbsp; They are also essential to the biogeochemical carbon cycle, absorbing <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.26.564148v1" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">as much as one-fifth</a> of atmospheric CO2. According to NASA, the populations are <a href="https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/details.cgi?aid=11934&amp;button=recent" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">declining</a>. It may be that our widening chokehold on rivers is contributing to the destruction of a keystone species that keeps the oceans teeming with life.</p>
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342. <p class="has-drop-cap">Lameboy and Torio have also documented the disappearance of numerous species of ducks from the James Bay ecosystem. Those that are still thriving are not to be hunted, because they are likely poisonous to humans. Ducks feed on mussels, and mussels that grow in James Bay, in the plume of water from the La Grande River, have high concentrations of methylmercury.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
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345.  
346. <p>Mercury sits harmless in soils when undisturbed, deposited over eons by geological events such as volcanic explosions (with some alarming additions by heavy industry). But when land is flooded, and oxygen levels plummet to produce anoxic conditions underwater, the mercury is drawn out of the soil by bacteria and transformed into the deadly toxin methylmercury. Exposure to methylmercury in humans can damage the brain and spinal cord in unborn babies and infants, producing a condition similar to cerebral palsy. It can produce a vast array of child development disorders, and in adults it’s a neurotoxin that can lead to severely impaired mental functioning, seizures, digestive and immune system malfunction, damage to the lungs and kidneys and, in large enough doses, death. The mercury from<a href="https://www.usgs.gov/centers/werc/science/mercury-bioaccumulation-wetlands" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> flooded lands</a> continues to<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6047777/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> bioaccumulate</a> in freshwater and oceans, promising long-term toxicity in the global fisheries food chain.&nbsp;</p>
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349.  
350. <p>In 2016, a research team looked at the likely methylmercury concentrations from the Muskrat Falls dam project on the Churchill River, which was expected to be completed a year later. They projected a tenfold increase in methylmercury levels in the impounded water, and 2.6-fold increase in estuarine surface waters where the Churchill River debouched into Lake Melville on its way to the Labrador Sea. Ryan Calder, professor of population health sciences at Virginia Tech and the lead author of the study, told me the predictions were spot-on. Methylmercury is “now within or above the 90% confidence interval predicted by our <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/pbalcom/files/calderothers-est2016.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">2016 paper</a> at three upstream sampling locations and slightly below that interval at three downstream locations.” Calder looked at the effect on Canada’s Indigenous communities when health advisories led to abandonment of traditional hunted and fished diets. He found that the switch to store-bought foods would likely worsen health outcomes, because industrial food was simply not as nutritious.&nbsp;</p>
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354. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-1024x683.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-295582" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-768x512.jpeg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-270x180.jpeg 270w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-405x270.jpeg 405w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-608x405.jpeg 608w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_458815813_Editorial_Use_Only-878x585.jpeg 878w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Hydro-Quebec headquarters in Montreal, QC, Canada. Image: Adobe</figcaption></figure>
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356.  
357.  
358. <p>Hydropower proponents like to say that the damage from the dams and reservoirs has already been done. No new dams need to be built, they claim, to provide electrons to New York City via CHPE, for example. But this may not be true. Hydro-Québec has signaled that its supply commitments, including those for New York, will require the company to find new capacity as early as 2026. Researchers at Harvard concluded, in a 2016 study, that over 90% of potential new hydroelectric projects in Canada were “likely to increase concentrations of … methylmercury in food webs near indigenous communities.”</p>
359.  
360.  
361.  
362. <p>When asked about concerns about megadam development during an interview at an open house informational event in New York City, Hydro-Québec&#8217;s Peter Rose, senior director of stakeholder relations, told me,&nbsp; &#8220;When it comes to methylmercury, the levels are safe. When it comes to carbon emissions, there are none.&nbsp; We did a hundred-year life cycle analysis and found greenhouse gas emissions on par with wind power.&#8221;&nbsp; He added in an emailed statement, &#8220;There are zero cases of mercury poisoning from fish consumption in Québec (to our knowledge).”&nbsp;</p>
363.  
364.  
365.  
366. <p class="has-drop-cap">One of the more impassioned dissenters against a U.S. partnership with Hydro-Québec is a retired mechanical engineer and home builder from Maine named Stephen Kasprzak. Kasprzak, who will turn 81 this year, has fought what he calls “the unnatural flow regulation of hydroelectric dams” since the 1980s, when a paper company decided to reduce summer and fall discharges from Eel Weir Dam on Maine’s Sebago Lake, where he owned a cottage for 40 years. The company’s intention was to raise lake levels enough to provide high-value winter hydropower for its paper mill. But it didn’t take into account one of the unfortunate consequences of the raised water levels: massive erosion of shorelines and Maine’s most outstanding inland beaches.  </p>
367.  
368.  
369.  
370. <p>Kasprzak is an obsessive fly fisherman. Sometimes he fishes twice a day. Threats to the health of aquatic ecosystems make him ornery. “What I understood is that damming water is bad, water needs to run free,” Kasprzak told me. He filed a formal complaint to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, alleging that the paper company had violated its FERC license by raising water levels without approval. FERC did nothing to restore the historic levels, and the erosion continues to this day.&nbsp;</p>
371.  
372.  
373.  
374. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“I think this whole discussion is a game-changer in how we approach climate issues.”</p></blockquote></figure>
375.  
376.  
377.  
378. <p>On an afternoon last October that felt too warm for the season, I went to hear Kasprzak present his findings about megadams at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. Kasprzak had been invited by the head of the school’s physics department, Robert Giles, who had reviewed his research and found it compelling enough that the students in his honors class, Energy and the Developing World, needed to hear it.</p>
379.  
380.  
381.  
382. <p>Kasprzak brought with him a dozen copies of a self-published book, “Arctic Blue Deserts,” which he distributed to the students. He had spent $50,000 for a run of 3,000 copies.&nbsp; “This is how much I believe in getting this out in the world,” he told me. He intended the 260-page treatise, as he explained in the introduction, to be “a counter narrative” about the “dramatic climate change facing the Arctic, caused in large part I believe, by the impact of mega reservoir hydroelectric dams radically altering the region’s natural water cycle.” Kasprzak, Giles told me, had marshaled “amazing data” in the book.&nbsp; “People have got to hear his message,” said Giles. “I think this whole discussion is a game-changer in how we approach climate issues.”</p>
383.  
384.  
385. <div class="wp-block-image">
386. <figure class="alignright size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="400" height="433" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Steve-Kasprzak.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-295787" style="width:416px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Steve-Kasprzak.jpeg 400w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Steve-Kasprzak-277x300.jpeg 277w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Steve-Kasprzak-166x180.jpeg 166w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Steve-Kasprzak-249x270.jpeg 249w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Steve-Kasprzak-374x405.jpeg 374w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Stephen Kasprzak has fought what he calls “the unnatural flow regulation of hydroelectric dams” since the 1980s.</figcaption></figure></div>
387.  
388.  
389. <p>Kasprzak launched into the counter narrative, with a series of PowerPoint slides that opened with black and white photos of the massive hydropower complexes built in Soviet Russia in the 1950s. It was the Soviets, he explained, who first understood the climatic implications of stoppering rivers and backing them up to create inland seas. By 1955, in a stunning instance of environmental hubris, the Soviet government had made clear its goal of warming the region by the creation of these inland seas. Rivers of immense volume and length, such as the Ob, Yeniseiand Angara, would be transformed into bodies of inert water heated by the sun, the water evaporating in greater volume to produce water vapor emissions, a powerful greenhouse gas.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
390.  
391.  
392.  
393. <p>“Astonishing climatic change would occur,” trumpeted Radio Moscow in August of 1958.&nbsp; “Evaporation (from the inland sea) would increase and with it the humidity of the air. The extremes of yearly and daily temperature characteristic of these would be greatly modified.” The most important modification from the increase in heat-trapping humidity was the warming of the Arctic climate and the melting of the icebound ports on the Kara and Laptev seas, the extensions of the Arctic Ocean along the Siberian coast. The Soviets had long desired to extend their imperial reach with the establishment of military terminals that had year-round access to the Arctic. They also suggested that regional warming would make mineral exploration easier in the Arctic. Regional warming would even facilitate the production of crops with an expanded growing season.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
394.  
395.  
396.  
397. <p>The extent of Arctic sea ice is one of the most powerful mechanisms regulating ocean temperatures. Arctic warming is proceeding at a rate four to five times the global average.&nbsp; What if it turns out that the Arctic <em>has</em> been warmed by mega-reservoir hydropower? It would explain a lot. Consider, in this context, the <a href="https://eos.org/science-updates/new-perspectives-on-the-enigma-of-expanding-antarctic-sea-ice" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">enigma of Antarctic sea ice</a>: in most areas it is growing in extent, confounding scientists whose climate models predicted exactly the opposite. The growth of Antarctic sea ice area stands in stark contrast to conditions in the Arctic, where the August extent of sea ice has declined by 2.9 million square miles over the past 40 years, a 37% drop — and one much greater than envisioned in climate models.</p>
398.  
399.  
400.  
401. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>What if it turns out that the Arctic <em>has</em> been warmed by mega-reservoir hydropower?</p></blockquote></figure>
402.  
403.  
404.  
405. <p>There is no consensus as to the causes of this Arctic amplification. But we do know that the region’s accelerated warming began in the 1970s. Kasprzak’s question is this: Was that coincidental or attendant to the construction of mega-reservoir hydropower complexes 15 years earlier? Among the evidence Kasprzak uncovered in his research: Annual average temperatures from multiple Russian weather stations, in the Kara Sea’s watershed in Siberia, reveal hinge points of unprecedented and extreme warming trends beginning in the 1950’s — directly after the stoppering of the rivers, the Ob and Yenisei, that feed the Kara. The Kara Sea is now the fastest warming ocean body in the world. According to the Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, the air temperature around the sea has increased 9 degrees Fahrenheit from 1998 to 2018. The Soviets wanted an ice-free Kara Sea. They succeeded. The Kara (along with the Laptev) has been called the ice factory of the Arctic Ocean and is one of the regulators of Arctic Ocean circulation and ice extent. A warmer Kara Sea means a warmer Arctic, which means a warmer planet.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
406.  
407.  
408.  
409. <p>Kasprzak wrapped up the presentation and we got lunch with Giles and another attendee, a UMass-Lowell professor emeritus of mathematics named Lee Jones. Jones specializes in probability statistics and pattern recognition and had taken a keen interest in the material in “Arctic Blue Deserts.” He had said a few words to the class before Kasprzak spoke. He noted that land temperatures agree well with predictions from CO2 concentration for the Southern Hemisphere. For the Northern Hemisphere, however, the rate of land warming has been approximately double that predicted by CO2 concentrations.&nbsp;</p>
410.  
411.  
412.  
413. <p>If CO2 concentration were the sole driver, Jones told me at lunch, the likelihood of the difference in observed Northern Hemisphere warming, using a robust mathematical time series, was about one in a thousand. “Climate specialists are arguing that in the North, because of methane emissions and increased water vapor, CO2 is only 70% of the greenhouse effect,” Jones told me. “So, if we plot northern land temperature versus greenhouse gas predictions, we see that only 80 to 90% of the warming is accounted for.” Jones said he was working on a statistical verification, using weather station data, of Kasprzak’s theory that in fact mega-reservoir hydropower has been one of the drivers of northern warming. “I think he’s onto something,” said Jones.</p>
414.  
415.  
416.  
417. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295585" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-768x511.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-271x180.jpg 271w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-406x270.jpg 406w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-609x405.jpg 609w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP900808078-880x585.jpg 880w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Construction of the LG3 spillway and dam as part of the James Bay Hydroelectric Project, Aug. 8, 1990. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Ulbrich)</figcaption></figure>
418.  
419.  
420.  
421. <p>A few weeks after the presentation at UMass, I drove up from New York to meet with Kasprzak at his home in Kennebunkport. He was joined by his old friend and research partner, Roger Wheeler, a 70-year-old retired middle school teacher. Wheeler was driven to take on hydropower dams for the same reasons as his friend: He had seen what had happened on Sebago Lake, where his family had owned a cottage since 1909.</p>
422.  
423.  
424.  
425. <p>We sat at Kasprzak’s computer and he walked us through the data, the charted temperature changes, the correlation with the construction of Soviet megadams, the hinge points. If all this is shown to be true for the inland seas of the hydropower complexes of Siberian Russia, then why, asks Kasprzak, would it not also be true for the inland seas of the complexes in Canada? Is there a possibility that regional warming in Canada driven by megadams is having an effect on global climate? “We need science to have a free discussion of this,” he told me. “If we’re wrong, please show us how.”</p>
426.  
427.  
428.  
429. <p>Kasprzak is not alone in his quest to publicize this facet of what he calls “the true story” behind boreal megadams. Roberta Benefiel, co-director of the Grand Riverkeeper in Labrador and a founding member of the North American Megadam Resistance Alliance, told me her organizations had gathered “tons of data from NOAA that show the upward trajectory of temperature in the Arctic at the exact same time as the biggest dams and reservoirs were brought on stream.” She added, “These are global issues, and what we have learned from our research needs to be taken seriously and reported widely.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
430.  
431.  
432.  
433. <p class="has-drop-cap">It turns out that hydropower has a serious greenhouse gas problem. The total amount of vegetation swallowed in a mega-reservoir is key to understanding this greenhouse gas output. When you dam a narrow mountain valley for power production in a place like Switzerland or Iceland, it’s pretty good for the climate when compared to the equivalent kilowatt-hour emissions from a natural gas plant and certainly against a coal-fired plant. That’s because at high elevations in Switzerland and Iceland there’s little vegetation that’s been submerged and made to rot.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
434.  
435.  
436.  
437. <p>In Canada, the inland seas of megadams cover sprawling boreal forests and bogs. For its part, the hydropower industry admits that a one-off blast into the atmosphere occurs as the vegetation decomposes, a surprisingly large spewing of CO2 and methane. But it claims the emissions quickly dissipate. Scientists are increasingly calling these claims into question. A research team at the Institute of Environmental Engineering in Zurich <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0161947" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">found</a> that the GHG footprint of hydropower “is far higher than previously assumed,” and in individual cases some reservoirs “can reach the same emission rates as thermal power plants.” The results of their research, they said, “question the sustainability that is often associated with hydropower.” Taylor Maavara, a freshwater biogeochemist at the University of Leeds in the U.K. who has looked at the environmental effects of the industry, saysthat it’s “misleading” to “laud dams as the most viable sustainable energy source in the era of climate change.”&nbsp;</p>
438.  
439.  
440.  
441. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The GHG footprint of hydropower “is far higher than previously assumed,” and in individual cases some reservoirs “can reach the same emission rates as thermal power plants.”</p></blockquote></figure>
442.  
443.  
444.  
445. <p>Brad Hager, a geophysics professor at MIT, has spent a decade investigating the greenhouse gas emissions of hydropower in Canada. The most relevant data he found are measurements made by Hydro-Québec of the CO2 emissions resulting from the flooding, in 2006, of 230 square miles of virgin forest and wetlands in anticipation of future demands for hydropower such as CHPE. In the first year after impoundment, the new Eastmain-1 reservoir emitted as much CO2 as would have been released by a coal-fired power plant generating the same amount of electricity.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
446.  
447.  
448.  
449. <p>Measurements the following three years were lower. Hydro-Québec projected that excess emissions decrease exponentially with time and are negligible within a decade, resulting in cumulative CO2 emissions of Eastmain-1 over a century almost half of those from natural gas. However, Hydro-Québec’s more recent measurements through 2012 show no significant decline after the first year, contradicting their claim that the excess emissions decay rapidly. Independent analyses of “transient” emissions from new reservoirs globally find that they go on for half a century. Hager concludes that the Eastmain-1 emissions, and those from the additional 130 square miles of virgin forest and wetlands flooded by diversion of the Rupert River into the Eastmain, completed in 2011, are “at least half as dirty as gas — something of an improvement,” but in no way climate friendly.</p>
450.  
451.  
452.  
453. <p>In a<a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Hydropower%27s-Biogenic-Carbon-Footprint-Scherer-Pfister/a02f57c96292146e611e5335337930a5c18243e3" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> 2016 study</a> published in the journal PLoS ONE of the greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 1,500 hydropower facilities worldwide, researchers at the Institute of Environmental Engineering, in Zurich, ranked six of Hydro-Québec’s mega-reservoirs among the top 25% of greenhouse gas emitters worldwide. The emissions of the six reservoirs ranged from roughly that of a natural gas power plant (about 400 grams of CO2-equivalent per kilowatt-hour) to more than twice that of coal-fired power plants (about 1,000 grams of CO2-equivalent per kilowatt-hour). The greenhouse gas footprints of some of Hydro-Québec’s power stations — as documented, Hager was careful to note, in the peer-reviewed scientific literature — “make it among the dirtiest hydro in the world.”</p>
454.  
455.  
456.  
457. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="682" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-1024x682.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295584" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-270x180.jpg 270w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-405x270.jpg 405w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-608x405.jpg 608w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01-878x585.jpg 878w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Churchill_Falls_01.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A photo of what remains of the original Churchill Falls following the diversion created by the Churchill Falls Generating Station. <small><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Churchill_Falls_01.jpg" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Photo: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Cephas" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Cephas</a></a> / <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></small></figcaption></figure>
458.  
459.  
460.  
461. <p>Studying mega-reservoir dams in South America, Philip Fearnside, the research professor at the National Institute of Amazonian Research, has declared them to be “<a href="https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/oa/article/view/5712" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">methane factories</a>.” This is a big impediment to bending the emissions curve to keep warming below catastrophic levels, given that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 when measured during the time window, the next 20 years, when the curve needs to bend the most. “Dams in tropical forest areas like the Amazon often have large drawdown zones in which easily composed herbaceous plants can grow quickly when the water level of the reservoir falls,” Fearnside reports. “These plants decompose at the bottom of the reservoir when the water level rises again, thus producing methane gas.” This source of methane is permanent, never diminishing, “unlike the large initial emission peak from the decomposition of carbon from the soil, vegetation, and litter of the original forest that takes place after the forested area is flooded.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
462.  
463.  
464.  
465. <p>The world is today plunging forward with planned or current construction of more dams than at any time since the 1960s. The driving force behind the dam boom is the Paris Climate Accords and the U.N.’s Clean Mechanism Rule, which incentivizes nations and investors to plumb the world’s rivers so as to appear to be mitigating the disastrous planetary warming trend.&nbsp;Much of the construction is in the tropics, where methane emissions are greatest. “Building tropical megadams,” Fearnside told me in an email, “is the worst energy option in terms of social injustice, biodiversity loss and emission of greenhouse gasses during the narrow time window when global warming must be contained.”&nbsp;</p>
466.  
467.  
468.  
469. <p class="has-drop-cap">Roberta Benefiel, who is 77, lives in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, home of the Churchill Falls Generating Station, which backs up the Churchill River, once called by the Innu the Mishta-shipu, the Grand River. That first dam on the Churchill was the beginning of its end, flattening its white-capped rapids and raging waterfalls. Benefiel doesn’t presume to speak for the Indigenous people who have been driven from the river and whose traditional foods have been toxified. But the rural whites and the Indigenous share a common feeling: They have lost a place that was beloved and sacred, a wild river with its abundance of riparian life. A second dam, Muskrat Falls, was completed in 2020 further down the Churchill River, and a third, the Gull Island Dam, is in the planning stage, with the government of Newfoundland and Labrador in discussion with Hydro-Québec to feed more electrons into the grid for sale to Canadian cities and the United States.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
470.  
471.  
472.  
473. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>They have lost a place that was beloved and sacred, a wild river with its abundance of riparian life.</p></blockquote></figure>
474.  
475.  
476.  
477. <p>Benefiel thinks it is time industrialized societies reconsider their assumptions about taking from the wild hinterlands to serve the hubs of civilization. Those who live under the shadow of the dams and in the destruction zone of the reservoirs wonder why they must sacrifice so that people in cities like New York can benefit. They wonder why the people in New York don’t make sacrifices. This is a sentiment I’ve heard repeatedly when interviewing land and water defenders, especially Native Americans, who suggest that affluent urbanites at the apex of the technological megamachine may need, in the face of our ecological crisis, to tighten their belts, contract their power usage, reduce their material footprint and start putting into effect some measure of austerity that nontechnologized, nonindustrialized people practice on a daily basis. I put this idea to Hydro-Québec booster Michael Gerrard at Columbia’s Sabin Center.&nbsp; “I understand the sentiment,” Gerrard replied, “but there is no imaginable pathway for a densely populated metropolitan area like New York to begin practicing this kind of austerity.”</p>
478.  
479.  
480.  
481. <p class="is-td-marked">Gerrard might as well be saying that the energy privileges of New Yorkers are non-negotiable. The pressing issue, with planetary warming on a catastrophic trajectory, is that these privileges now need to be greened. “Environmentalists glom on to this green energy idea as though we in the Western world can continue living high on the hog,” Benefiel told me. “<em>All we have to do is switch the type of power we use.</em> Those are false solutions. We don’t consider the fact that we absolutely cannot continue to live this way. We have to scale down.”</p>
482.  
483.  
484.  
485. <p class="has-small-font-size">This article was produced in collaboration with the <a href="https://thefern.org/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Food &amp; Environment Reporting Network</a>, an independent, nonprofit news organization.</p>
486. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-whole-dam-truth/">The Whole Dam Truth</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
487. ]]></content:encoded>
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496. <item>
497. <title>Is Oil Field Waste Making You Sick?</title>
498. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/it-could-be-oil-field-waste-making-you-sick/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=it-could-be-oil-field-waste-making-you-sick</link>
499. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/it-could-be-oil-field-waste-making-you-sick/#respond</comments>
501. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Justin Nobel]]></dc:creator>
502. <pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:20:29 +0000</pubDate>
503. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
504. <category><![CDATA[Book Excerpt]]></category>
505. <category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
506. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
507. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
508. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
509. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
510. <category><![CDATA[epa]]></category>
511. <category><![CDATA[fracking]]></category>
512. <category><![CDATA[marion county]]></category>
513. <category><![CDATA[oil field waste]]></category>
514. <category><![CDATA[radioactive]]></category>
515. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295791</guid>
516.  
517. <description><![CDATA[<p>The industry's workers are at risk and we don't know how bad the radioactivity is.</p>
518. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/it-could-be-oil-field-waste-making-you-sick/">Is Oil Field Waste Making You Sick?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
519. ]]></description>
520. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
521. <p><em>The following is an adapted excerpt from “</em><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/petroleum-238-big-oil-s-dangerous-secret-and-the-grassroots-fight-to-stop-it-justin-nobel/20873986?ean=9798989546237" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Petroleum 238: Big Oil’s Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop It</a><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/petroleum-238-big-oil-s-dangerous-secret-and-the-grassroots-fight-to-stop-it-justin-nobel/20873986?ean=9798989546237" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><em>,</em></a><em>” published this week on Karret Press.</em></p>
522.  
523.  
524.  
525. <p class="has-drop-cap">Every day across the U.S., billions of pounds of toxic and radioactive waste is produced by oil and gas wells. My journey into this topic started when an Ohio community organizer told me that someone had used radioactive oil field waste to make a liquid deicer for home driveways and patios — one that was supposedly “Safe for Pets” and that he’d been selling at Lowe’s. Unraveling how that came to be turned into a <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-gas-fracking-radioactive-investigation-937389/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">20-month Rolling Stone magazine investigation</a>, a <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/author/justin-nobel/">set of shocking Truthdig investigations</a>, and a <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Petroleum-238-Dangerous-Secret-Grassroots-Fight/dp/B0CN79JL43/ref=sr_1_1?crid=35EL6AIK83SPO&amp;keywords=petroleum-238%3A+Big+oil%27s+dangerous+secret+and+the+grassroots+fight+to+stop+it&amp;qid=1699991507&amp;sprefix=petroleum-238+big+oil%27s+dangerous+secret+and+the+grassro%2Caps%2C3638&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">book</a> published this week, “Petroleum 238: Big Oil’s Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop It.”&nbsp;</p>
526.  
527.  
528. <div class="wp-block-image">
529. <figure class="alignright size-full is-resized"><a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/petroleum-238-big-oil-s-dangerous-secret-and-the-grassroots-fight-to-stop-it-justin-nobel/20873986?ean=9798989546237" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="348" height="500" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/41f2lYjuXNL.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295792" style="width:296px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/41f2lYjuXNL.jpg 348w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/41f2lYjuXNL-209x300.jpg 209w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/41f2lYjuXNL-125x180.jpg 125w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/41f2lYjuXNL-188x270.jpg 188w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/41f2lYjuXNL-282x405.jpg 282w" sizes="(max-width: 348px) 100vw, 348px" /></a></figure></div>
530.  
531.  
532. <p>“Petroleum 238” is the story of how a powerful industry spreads harm across the land and sickens the American people, especially their very own workers. This industry puts enormous resources into making sure no one ever put all the pieces together, and no one ever has — until now. Many people tell me there is nothing to see here, the levels aren’t that bad, but unfortunately this is the same thing the oil and gas industry’s <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-slow-rolling-disaster-in-fracking-country/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener ">shadow network of radioactive waste workers have often been told</a>. So, they work on, shoveling and scooping waste, mixing it with lime and coal ash and ground up corn cobs in an attempt to lower the radioactivity levels, without appropriate protection, sometimes in T-shirts, eating lunch and smoking cigarettes and having cookouts in absurdly contaminated workspaces. Sludge splatters all over their bodies, liquid waste splashes into their eyes and mouths, they inhale radioactive dust as waste eats away their boots, soaks their socks and encrusts clothes that are often brought home and washed in the family washing machine, further spreading contamination. <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/inside-west-virginias-chernobyl/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener ">Oil field waste has been spilled</a>, spread, injected, dumped and <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/investigative-story/growing-list-of-fracking-concerns-now-includes-radioactivity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener ">freely emitted across this nation</a>. And contamination has been discharged — sometimes illegally, often legally — into the same rivers America’s towns and cities draw their drinking water from. </p>
533.  
534.  
535.  
536. <p>The other month, <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/inside-west-virginias-chernobyl/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener ">I visited an abandoned fracking waste treatment plant</a> on a large U.S. river where unknowing local kids had been partying. Littered with beer cans and condoms, parts of it were more deeply contaminated with radioactivity than most of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I was there with a former Department of Energy scientist and his Geiger counter issued a terrifying alarm and reading of around 2 milliroentgens per hour. He had samples tested at a radiological analysis lab and discovered the radioactive element radium to be 5,000 times general background levels.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
537.  
538.  
539.  
540. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Almost all materials of interest and use to the petroleum industry contain measurable quantities of radionuclides that reside finally in process equipment, product streams, or waste.”</p></blockquote></figure>
541.  
542.  
543.  
544. <p>It’s all right there in the industry’s own research and reports. And this is the beauty of science as a record of our world and its ways; like a sacred language, it moves through time, collecting new bits and building. One can go back to 1904, when a 25-year-old Canadian graduate student named Eli described “experiments with a highly radioactive gas obtained from crude petroleum.” Or to 1982, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2020/01/22/american-petroleum-institute-oil-workers-radioactive-nobel-rollingstone/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">when a report of the American Petroleum Institute’s Committee for Environmental Biology and Community Health stated</a>, “Almost all materials of interest and use to the petroleum industry contain measurable quantities of radionuclides that reside finally in process equipment, product streams, or waste.” Radium, they warned, was “a potent source of radiation exposure, both internal and external,” while the radioactive gas radon and its polonium daughters “deliver significant population and occupational exposures.” Radon is America’s second leading cause of lung cancer deaths and naturally contaminates natural gas. Which means it is being emitted out of home stoves in parts of the country at levels high enough to generate public health risks, and over time, cancer and deaths. The 1982 American Petroleum Institute report concluded, “regulation of radionuclides could impose a severe burden on API member companies.”</p>
545.  
546.  
547.  
548. <p>And the industry has triumphed: the radioactivity brought to the surface in oil and gas development has never been federally regulated. Instead, the industry was granted a federal exemption in 1980 that legally defined their waste as nonhazardous, despite containing toxic chemicals, carcinogens, heavy metals and all the radioactivity. The same 1980 exemption allows radioactive oilfield waste to be transported from foreign countries seamlessly across America’s borders and <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/04/22/lotus-llc-radioactive-fracking-waste-disposal-texas/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">deposited in the desert of West Texas</a>. I have been there.</p>
549.  
550.  
551.  
552. <p>“With fossil fuels, essentially what you are doing is taking an underground radioactive reservoir and bringing it up to the surface where it can interact with people and the environment,” the nuclear forensics scientist Dr. Marco Kaltofen has told me. “Radiation is complex and difficult to understand but it leaves hundreds of clues.”&nbsp;</p>
553.  
554.  
555.  
556. <p>Known to precious few people, the mineral scale and sludge that accumulates in our 321,000-plus miles of natural gas gathering and transmission pipelines can be filled with stunning levels of the same isotope of polonium assassins used in 2006 to murder former Russian security officer Alexander Litvinenko by placing an amount smaller than a grain of sand in his tea at a London hotel bar. Natural gas pipeline sludge, reads a 1993 article on oilfield radioactivity published in the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Journal of Petroleum Technology can become so radioactive it requires “the same handling as low-level radioactive wastes.” And yet U.S. law still considers it nonhazardous. Unlike the cosmic radiation an airline passenger is exposed to, or the X-rays of a CT scan, moving around radioactive oil field sludge or scale invariably creates dust and particles that an unprotected worker can easily inhale or ingest into their body, where they can decay and fire off radiation in the intimate and vulnerable space of the lungs, guts, bones or blood.</p>
557.  
558.  
559.  
560. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“With fossil fuels, essentially what you are doing is taking an underground radioactive reservoir and bringing it up to the surface where it can interact with people and the environment.”</p></blockquote></figure>
561.  
562.  
563.  
564. <p>This is an astonishing scientific story about worker and environmental justice. Because oil and gas happens to bring up some of Earth’s most notorious radioactive elements, we live on a radioactive planet. These elements can be concentrated in the oil and gas-bearing geologic formations deep underground and further concentrated by the industry’s processes at the surface. From day one, which in the United States was 1859 — when the first commercial oil well was drilled in Titusville Pennsylvania <strong>— </strong>the U.S. oil and gas industry has had no good idea what to do with this waste. Modern fracking has only worsened the problem by tapping into even more radioactive formations, bringing drilling closer to communities, and vastly increasing the amount of waste.</p>
565.  
566.  
567.  
568. <p>In a 1979 Congressional hearing, Texas oil field regulators, using figures calculated by the American Petroleum Institute, provided a clue as to what regulations that labeled the oil field’s most dangerous waste as hazardous might mean for the industry: a “one time cost of over $34 billion to bring existing operations into compliance” and “as high as $10.8 billion per year.” That number would be drastically higher today, but no one has done the math, in part because the full picture of costs and harms remains unknown.</p>
569.  
570.  
571.  
572. <p class="is-td-marked">Whether it is a <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2023/09/19/radioactive-fracking-waste-west-virginia-veolia-antero-clearwater/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">multinational company out of Paris</a>, or the guy in rural Pennsylvania who stashed fracking waste beneath a courthouse, readers will be surprised at how deep this rabbit hole goes — and how close it may touch to the place they call home and the things they cherish.</p>
573. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/it-could-be-oil-field-waste-making-you-sick/">Is Oil Field Waste Making You Sick?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
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583. <item>
584. <title>To Hell and Back Again in Iran</title>
585. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/to-hell-and-back-again-in-iran/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=to-hell-and-back-again-in-iran</link>
586. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/to-hell-and-back-again-in-iran/#respond</comments>
588. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bob Dreyfuss /  TomDispatch]]></dc:creator>
589. <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:30:22 +0000</pubDate>
590. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
591. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
592. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
593. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
594. <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category>
595. <category><![CDATA[Election 2024]]></category>
596. <category><![CDATA[jcpoa]]></category>
597. <category><![CDATA[joe biden]]></category>
598. <category><![CDATA[tehran]]></category>
599. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295766</guid>
600.  
601. <description><![CDATA[<p>Trump blew up the Iran nuclear deal. Can Biden still fix it?</p>
602. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/to-hell-and-back-again-in-iran/">To Hell and Back Again in Iran</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
603. ]]></description>
604. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
605. <p><strong>One, erratic and often unhinged</strong>, blew up the U.S.-Iran accord that was the landmark foreign policy achievement of President Obama’s second term. He then ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general visiting Iraq, dramatically raising tensions in the region. The other is a traditional advocate of American exceptionalism, a supporter of the U.S.-Iran agreement who promised to restore it upon taking office, only to ham-handedly bungle the job, while placating Israel.</p>
606.  
607.  
608.  
609. <p>In November, of course, American voters get to choose which of the two they’d trust with handling ongoing explosive tensions with Tehran across a Middle East now in crisis. The war in Gaza has already intensified the danger of an Iran-Israel conflict — with the recent devastating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/14/why-israel-attack-on-iranian-consulate-in-syria-was-a-gamechanger" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Israeli strike</a> on an Iranian consulate in Syria and the <a href="https://www.juancole.com/2024/04/netanyahu-empowered-genocidal.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Iranian response</a> of drones and missiles dispatched against Israel only upping the odds. In addition, Iran’s “axis of resistance” — including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria — has been challenging American hegemony throughout the Middle East, while drawing lethal U.S. counterstrikes in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.</p>
610.  
611.  
612.  
613. <p>It was President Donald Trump, of course, who condemned the U.S.-Iran agreement, known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action#:~:text=The%20Joint%20Comprehensive%20Plan%20of,the%20P5%2B1%20(the%20five" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action</a> (JCPOA) while running in 2016. With his team of fervent anti-Iran hawks, including Secretary of State <a href="https://apnews.com/article/3ca2915f8a9549c6aad72a6544a53cc5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Mike Pompeo</a> and National Security Advisor <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1GY393/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">John Bolton</a>, he took a wrecking ball to relations with Iran. Six years ago, Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA and, in what he called a campaign of “maximum pressure,” reinstituted, then redoubled political and economic sanctions against Tehran. Characteristically, he maintained a consistently belligerent policy toward the Islamic Republic, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/5/20/trump-threatens-irans-end-if-it-seeks-fight-with-the-us" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">threatening</a> its very existence and warning that he could <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1TQ0BR/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">“obliterate” Iran</a>.</p>
614.  
615.  
616.  
617. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Six years ago, Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA and, in what he called a campaign of “maximum pressure,” reinstituted, then redoubled political and economic sanctions against Tehran.</p></blockquote></figure>
618.  
619.  
620.  
621. <p>Joe Biden had been a supporter of the accord, negotiated while he was Obama’s vice president. During his 2020 presidential campaign, he promised to rejoin it. In the end, though, he kept Trump’s onerous sanctions in place and months of negotiations went nowhere. While he put out&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us-iran-talks-cool-tensions-with-mutual-understanding-2023-06-16/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">feelers</a>&nbsp;to Tehran, crises erupting in 2022 and 2023, including the invasion of Israel by Hamas, placed huge obstacles in the way of tangible progress toward rebooting the JCPOA.</p>
622.  
623.  
624.  
625. <p>Worse yet, still reeling from the collapse of the 2015 agreement and ruled by a hardline government deeply suspicious of Washington, Iran is in no mood to trust another American diplomatic venture. In fact, during the earlier talks, it distinctly&nbsp;<a href="https://iran-times.com/has-the-regime-overplayed-its-nuclear-hand/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">overplayed its hand</a>, demanding far more than Biden could conceivably offer.</p>
626.  
627.  
628.  
629. <p>Meanwhile, Iran has accelerated its nuclear research and its potential production facilities, amassing large stockpiles of uranium that, as the&nbsp;<em>Washington Post</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/04/10/iran-nuclear-bomb-iaea-fordow/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">reports</a>, “could be converted to weapons-grade fuel for at least three bombs in a time frame ranging from a few days to a few weeks.”</p>
630.  
631.  
632.  
633. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Trump’s Anti-Iran Jihad</h3>
634.  
635.  
636.  
637. <p>While the U.S. and Iran weren’t exactly at peace when Trump took office in January 2017, the JCPOA had at least created the foundation for what many hoped would be a new era in their relations.</p>
638.  
639.  
640.  
641. <p>Iran had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/JCPOA-at-a-glance" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">agreed</a>&nbsp;to drastically limit the scale and scope of its uranium enrichment program, reduce the number of centrifuges it could operate, curtail its production of low-enriched uranium suitable for fueling a power plant, and ship nearly all of its enriched uranium stockpile out of the country. It closed and disabled its Arak plutonium reactor, while agreeing to a stringent regime in which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would monitor every aspect of its nuclear program.</p>
642.  
643.  
644.  
645. <p>In exchange, the United States, the European Union (EU), and the United Nations agreed to remove an array of economic sanctions, which, until then, had arguably made Iran the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_against_Iran#:~:text=Iran%20was%20the%20most%20sanctioned,in%20Tehran%20and%20took%20hostages." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">most sanctioned country</a> in the world.</p>
646.  
647.  
648.  
649. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>While the U.S. and Iran weren’t exactly at peace when Trump took office in January 2017, the JCPOA had at least created the foundation for what many hoped would be a new era in their relations.</p></blockquote></figure>
650.  
651.  
652.  
653. <p>Free of some of them, its economy began to recover, while its oil exports, its economic lifeblood,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/media/6750" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">nearly doubled</a>. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=35571&amp;local_ref=new" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><em>How Sanctions Work</em></a>, a new book from Stanford University Press, Iran absorbed a windfall of $11 billion in foreign investment, gained access to $55 billion in assets frozen in Western banks, and saw its inflation rate fall from 45% to 8%.</p>
654.  
655.  
656.  
657. <p>But Trump acted forcefully to undermine it all. In October 2017, he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/13/politics/iran-deal-decertify/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">“decertified”</a>&nbsp;Iran’s compliance with the accord, amid false charges that it had violated the agreement. (Both the EU and the IAEA agreed that it&nbsp;<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/blog/2017-10-20/p51-iran-nuclear-deal-alert-october-20-2017" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">had not</a>.)</p>
658.  
659.  
660.  
661. <p>Many observers feared that Trump was creating an environment in which Washington could launch an Iraq-style war of aggression. In a&nbsp;<em>New York Times</em>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/opinion/trump-iran-war.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">op-ed</a>, Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, suggested that Trump was repeating the pattern of unproven allegations President George W. Bush had relied on: “The Trump administration is using much the same playbook to create a false impression that war is the only way to address the threats posed by Iran.”</p>
662.  
663.  
664.  
665. <p>Finally, on May 8, 2018, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-ending-united-states-participation-unacceptable-iran-deal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">blew up the JCPOA</a>&nbsp;and sanctions on Iran were back in place. Relentlessly, he and Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin piled on ever more of them in what they called a&nbsp;<a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2021/mar/03/sanctions-5-trumps-maximum-pressure-targets" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">campaign of “maximum pressure.”</a>&nbsp;Old sanctions were reactivated and hundreds of new ones added, targeting Iran’s banking and oil industries, its shipping industry, its metal and petrochemical firms, and finally, its construction, mining, manufacturing, and textile sectors. Countless individual officials and businessmen were also targeted, along with dozens of companies worldwide that dealt, however tangentially, with Iran’s sanctioned firms. It was, Mnuchin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-mnuchin/u-s-treasurys-mnuchin-says-u-s-will-ramp-up-pressure-on-iran-idUSKBN1X7149/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">told</a>&nbsp;Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “a maximum pressure campaign for sanctions…. We will continue to ramp up, more, more, more.” At one point, in a gesture both meaningless and insulting, the Trump administration even sanctioned Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, a move moderate President Hassan Rouhani&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/general-news-67299afa909d44a7ad83ae5690c7dde2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">called</a>&nbsp;“outrageous and idiotic,” adding that Trump was “afflicted by mental retardation.”</p>
666.  
667.  
668.  
669. <p>Then, in 2019, Trump took the <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-designation-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-foreign-terrorist-organization/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">unprecedented step</a> of labeling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s chief military arm, a “foreign terrorist organization.” He put a violent exclamation point on that when he ordered the <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-killing-qasem-soleimani/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">assassination</a> of Iran’s premier military leader, General <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-vows-revenge-soleimani-killing-if-trump-not-put-trial-2022-01-03/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Qassem Soleimani</a>, during his visit to Baghdad.</p>
670.  
671.  
672.  
673. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The American withdrawal from the JCPOA and the severity of the sanctions that followed were seen by Iran as an attempt to break the back of the Islamic Republic or, worse, to completely destroy it.”</p></blockquote></figure>
674.  
675.  
676.  
677. <p>Administration officials made it clear that the goal was&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/1095986045324349440" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">toppling the regime</a>&nbsp;and that they hoped the sanctions would provoke an uprising to overthrow the government. Iranians did, in fact, rise up in&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Iranian_general_strikes_and_protests#:~:text=The%202018%E2%80%932019%20Iranian%20general,the%20wider%20Iranian%20Democracy%20Movement." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">strikes and demonstrations</a>, including most recently 2023’s&nbsp;<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/90583" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">“Woman, Life, Freedom” movement</a>, partly thanks to tougher economic times due to the sanctions. The government’s response, however, was a brutal crackdown. Meanwhile, on the nuclear front, having painstakingly complied with the JCPOA until 2018, instead of being even more conciliatory Iran&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/27/us-frets-over-irans-accelerated-uranium-enrichment-programme" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">ramped up</a>&nbsp;its program, enriching far more uranium than was necessary to fuel a power plant. And militarily, it initiated a series of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/trigger-list/iran-us-trigger-list/flashpoints/hormuz" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">clashes</a>&nbsp;with U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2019_Gulf_of_Oman_incident#:~:text=U.S.%20intelligence%20blamed%20the%20attacks,and%20the%20United%20Arab%20Emirates." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">attacked</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/11/iran-navy-says-seized-oil-tanker-off-oman-state-media-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">seized</a>&nbsp;foreign-operated oil tankers,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/20/middleeast/iran-drone-claim-hnk-intl/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">shot down</a>&nbsp;a U.S. drone in the Straits of Hormuz, and launched drones meant to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refineries-drone-attack.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">cripple</a>&nbsp;Saudi Arabia’s huge oil industry.</p>
678.  
679.  
680.  
681. <p>“The American withdrawal from the JCPOA and the severity of the sanctions that followed were seen by Iran as an attempt to break the back of the Islamic Republic or, worse, to completely destroy it,”&nbsp;<a href="https://sais.jhu.edu/users/vnasr1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Vali Nasr</a>, a veteran analyst at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and one of the authors of&nbsp;<em>How Sanctions Work</em>, told me. “So, they circled the wagons. Iran became far more securitized, and it handed more and more power to the IRGC and the security forces.”</p>
682.  
683.  
684.  
685. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Biden’s Reign of (Unforced) Error</h3>
686.  
687.  
688.  
689. <p>Having long supported a deal with Iran — &nbsp;<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110shrg47032/html/CHRG-110shrg47032.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">in 2008</a>, as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110shrg47032/html/CHRG-110shrg47032.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">chairman</a>&nbsp;of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and,&nbsp;<a href="https://wassermanschultz.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=240" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">in 2015</a>, in a speech to Jewish leaders — Joe Biden&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/20/joe-biden-trump-iran-1372607" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">called</a>&nbsp;Trump’s decision to quit the JCPOA a “self-inflicted disaster.” But on entering the Oval Office, Biden failed to simply rejoin it.</p>
690.  
691.  
692.  
693. <p>Instead, he let months go by, while <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/blinken-iran-nuclear-russia-navalny-/31053093.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">waxing rhetorical</a> in a quest to somehow improve it. Even though the JCPOA had been working quite well, the Biden team insisted it <a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2021/jan/21/antony-blinken-iran" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">wanted</a> a “longer and stronger agreement” and that Iran first had to return to compliance with the agreement, even though it was the United States that had pulled out of the deal.</p>
694.  
695.  
696.  
697. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;He could have just come back to the JCPOA by issuing an executive order, but he didn’t do anything for what turned out to be the ten most critical weeks.”</p></blockquote></figure>
698.  
699.  
700.  
701. <p>Consider that an unforced error. “Early in 2021 there was one last chance to restore the agreement,”&nbsp;<a href="https://quincyinst.org/author/trita-parsi/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Trita Parsi</a>, an expert on Iran and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told me. “He could have just come back to the JCPOA by issuing an executive order, but he didn’t do anything for what turned out to be the ten most critical weeks.”</p>
702.  
703.  
704.  
705. <p>It was critical because the Iranian administration of President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, responsible for negotiating the original accord, was expiring and new elections were scheduled for June 2021. “One of the major mistakes Biden made is that he delayed the nuclear talks into April,” comments&nbsp;<a href="https://sgs.princeton.edu/team/seyed-hossein-mousavian" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Seyed Hossein Mousavian</a>, Princeton University scholar and a former top Iranian official who was part of its nuclear negotiating team in 2005-2007. “This was a golden opportunity to negotiate with the Rouhani team, but he delayed until a month before the Iranian elections. He could have finished the deal by May.”</p>
706.  
707.  
708.  
709. <p>When the talks finally did resume in April — “gingerly,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/world/europe/iran-nuclear-talks.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">according to</a>&nbsp;the&nbsp;<em>New York Times</em>&nbsp;— they were further complicated because, just days earlier, a covert Israeli operation had devastated one of Iran’s top nuclear research facilities with an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-natanz.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">enormous explosion</a>. Iran responded by pledging to take the purity of its enriched uranium from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-01/news/iran-accelerates-highly-enriched-uranium-production" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">20% to 60%</a>, which didn’t exactly help the talks, nor did Biden’s unwillingness to condemn Israel for a provocation clearly designed to wreck them.</p>
710.  
711.  
712.  
713. <p>That June, Iranians&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/19/world/middleeast/iran-election-president-raisi.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">voted in a new president</a>, Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric and militant supporter of the “axis of resistance.” He took office in August, spent months assembling his administration, and appointed a new team to lead the nuclear talks. By July, according to American officials, those talks on a new version of the JCPOA had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/politics/biden-iran-nuclear-deal.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">reached</a>&nbsp;“near complete agreement,” only to fall apart when the Iranian side backed out.</p>
714.  
715.  
716.  
717. <p>It was also clear that the Biden administration didn’t prioritize the Iran talks, being less than eager to deal with bitter opposition from Israel and its allies on Capitol Hill. “Biden’s view was that he’d go along with reviving the JCPOA only if he felt it was absolutely necessary and to do it at the least political cost,” Parsi points out. “And it looked like he’d only do it if it were acceptable to Israel.”</p>
718.  
719.  
720.  
721. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“One of the major mistakes Biden made is that he delayed the nuclear talks into April.” </p></blockquote></figure>
722.  
723.  
724.  
725. <p>Over the next two years, the United States and Iran engaged in an unproductive series of negotiations that seemed to come tantalizingly close to an agreement only to stop short. By the summer of 2022, the nuclear talks once again appeared to be making progress, only to fail yet again. &nbsp;“After 15 months of intense, constructive negotiations in Vienna and countless interactions with the JCPOA participants and the U.S., I have concluded that the space for additional significant compromises has been exhausted,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/04/world/middleeast/us-iran-nuclear-deal.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">wrote</a>&nbsp;Josep Borrell Fontelles, the foreign policy chief for the European Union.</p>
726.  
727.  
728.  
729. <p>By the end of 2022, Biden&nbsp;<a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/30/iran-protest-continue-revolutionary-guard" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">reportedly</a>&nbsp;declared the Iran deal “dead” and his chief negotiator insisted he wouldn’t “waste time” trying to revive it. As Mousavian told me, Iran’s crackdown on the&nbsp;<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/90583" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Woman, Life, Freedom revolt</a>&nbsp;in the wake of its “morality police” torturing and killing a young woman,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/09/what-happened-to-mahsa-zhina-amini/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Mahsa Amini</a>, arrested on the streets of Tehran without a veil, and increased concern about&nbsp;<a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2023/mar/01/timeline-iran-russia-collaboration-drones" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Iranian drones</a>&nbsp;being delivered to Russia for its war in Ukraine soured Biden on even talking to Iran.</p>
730.  
731.  
732.  
733. <p>Nonetheless, in 2023, yet another round of talks — helped, perhaps, by a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/us/politics/iran-us-prisoners-nuclear-program.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">prisoner exchange</a>&nbsp;between the United States and Iran, including an agreement to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-prisoner-swap-americans-6-billion-waiver-us-sanctions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">unfreeze $6 billion</a>&nbsp;in Iranian oil revenues – resulted in a tentative, informal accord that Iranian officials described as a “<a href="https://archive.is/YT4d2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">political ceasefire</a>.” According to the&nbsp;<em>Times of Israel</em>, “the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-iran-said-discussing-informal-limited-political-ceasefire-not-full-nuke-deal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">understandings</a>&nbsp;would see Tehran pledge not to enrich uranium beyond its current level of 60 percent purity, to better cooperate with U.N. nuclear inspectors, to stop its proxy terror groups from attacking U.S. contractors in Iraq and Syria, to avoid providing Russia with ballistic missiles, and to release three American-Iranians held in the Islamic Republic.”</p>
734.  
735.  
736.  
737. <p>But even that informal agreement was consigned to the dustbin of history after&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_support_for_Hamas" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Hamas’s October 7th attack</a>&nbsp;doomed any rapprochement between the United States and Iran.</p>
738.  
739.  
740.  
741. <p>The question remains: Could some version of the JCPOA be salvaged in 2025?</p>
742.  
743.  
744.  
745. <p>Certainly not if, as now seems increasingly possible, a shooting war breaks out involving the United States, Iran, and Israel, a catastrophic crisis with unforeseeable consequences. And certainly not if Trump is reelected, which would plunge the United States and Iran deeper into their cold (if not a devastatingly hot) war.</p>
746.  
747.  
748.  
749. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>By the end of 2022, Biden <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/10/30/iran-protest-continue-revolutionary-guard" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">reportedly</a> declared the Iran deal “dead” and his chief negotiator insisted he wouldn’t “waste time” trying to revive it.</p></blockquote></figure>
750.  
751.  
752.  
753. <p>What do the experts say? Against the possibility of a revived accord, according to Vali Nasr, Iran has concluded that Washington is an utterly untrustworthy negotiating partner whose word is worthless. “Iran has decided that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans and they decided to escalate tensions further in order to gain what they hope is additional leverage vis-à-vis Washington.”</p>
754.  
755.  
756.  
757. <p>“Biden’s intention was to revive the deal,” says Hossein Mousavian. “He did take some practical steps to do so and at least he tried to deescalate the situation.” Iran was, however, less willing to move forward because Biden insisted on maintaining the sanctions Trump had imposed.</p>
758.  
759.  
760.  
761. <p>The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, however, catches the full pessimism of a moment in which Iran and Israel (backed remarkably fully by Washington) are at the edge of actual war. Given the rising tensions in the region, not to speak of actual clashes, he says gloomily, “The best that we can hope for is that nothing happens. There is no hope for anything more.”</p>
762.  
763.  
764.  
765. <p>And that’s where hope is today in a Middle East that seems to be heading for hell in a handbasket.</p>
766. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/to-hell-and-back-again-in-iran/">To Hell and Back Again in Iran</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
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776. <item>
777. <title>How Development Banks Underwrote Fast Food&#8217;s Global Takeover</title>
778. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-fast-foods-global-takeover-was-underwritten-by-development-banks/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-fast-foods-global-takeover-was-underwritten-by-development-banks</link>
779. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-fast-foods-global-takeover-was-underwritten-by-development-banks/#respond</comments>
781. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Alex Park /  DeSmog]]></dc:creator>
782. <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:06:26 +0000</pubDate>
783. <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category>
784. <category><![CDATA[Economic Justice]]></category>
785. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
786. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
787. <category><![CDATA[European Bank for Reconstruction and Development]]></category>
788. <category><![CDATA[fast food]]></category>
789. <category><![CDATA[International Finance Corporation]]></category>
790. <category><![CDATA[kfc]]></category>
791. <category><![CDATA[Yum Brands]]></category>
792. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295758</guid>
793.  
794. <description><![CDATA[<p>From South Africa to Ukraine, five industrial chicken companies that supply KFC have benefited from financing from the World Bank Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.</p>
795. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-fast-foods-global-takeover-was-underwritten-by-development-banks/">How Development Banks Underwrote Fast Food&#8217;s Global Takeover</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
796. ]]></description>
797. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
798. <p><strong>With its unparalleled</strong> purchasing power and exacting demands, fast food has long shaped agricultural systems in the United States, Europe, and China. But as major American fast food brands, like KFC, expand into so-called “frontier markets,” taxpayer-funded development banks have made their global expansion possible by underwriting the factory farms that supply them with chicken, a DeSmog<em> </em>investigation has found. </p>
799.  
800.  
801.  
802. <p>In all, the investigation identified five factory-scale poultry companies in as many countries that have received financial support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC, the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank Group), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), or both since 2003, and that supply chicken to KFC. A sixth company has benefited from IFC advisory services but has not received financing.&nbsp;</p>
803.  
804.  
805.  
806. <p>A review of press accounts, financial disclosures, and the companies’ websites shows this support aided these firms’ KFC-linked operations in up to 13 countries in Asia, Africa, and Europe.&nbsp;</p>
807.  
808.  
809.  
810. <p>In Kazakhstan, both banks helped a Soviet-era poultry factory become a KFC supplier. In 2011, the IFC lent poultry company Ust-Kamenogorsk Poultry (UKPF) <a href="https://disclosures.ifc.org/project-detail/SPI/28112/ust-kamenogorsk-poultry-farm-jsc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">invested</a> $2 million in refurbishing housing for chickens, among other projects. In 2016, the EBRD made a <a href="https://www.ebrd.com/work-with-us/projects/psd/kipf-equity-investment.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$20 million equity</a> investment in the company’s parent, Aitas, to finance the construction of a new facility to raise and process poultry. In 2018, two years after announcing the financing deal, UKPF <a href="https://marel.com/en/news/223-meter-chicken-barbecue-world-record/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">revealed</a> it had become a supplier to KFC in Kazakhstan. The EBRD sold its stake in the company in 2019. </p>
811.  
812.  
813.  
814. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The investigation identified five factory-scale poultry companies in as many countries that have received financial support from the International Finance Corporation.</p></blockquote></figure>
815.  
816.  
817.  
818. <p>In South Africa, the IFC helped one KFC supplier bolster its operations across the region. In 2013, the bank&nbsp;<a href="https://disclosures.ifc.org/project-detail/ESRS/32653/country-bird" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">loaned</a>&nbsp;Country Bird Holdings $25 million to expand existing operations in South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia. Country Bird supplies KFC in all three countries, as well as Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Three years later, in 2016, Country Bird also became KFC’s sole franchisee in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bus-ex.com/article/country-bird-holdings-cbh" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Zambia</a>.</p>
819.  
820.  
821.  
822. <p>In Jordan, the EBRD’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ebrd.com/work-with-us/projects/psd/al-jazeera-agricultural-company.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">technical support and a 2015 loan</a>&nbsp;worth up to $21 million helped poultry company Al Jazeera Agricultural Company upgrade its facilities and expand its retail presence. Al Jazeera claims to produce half the country’s restaurant-sold chicken. It includes the local franchisees of KFC and Texas Chicken (known by its original name, Church’s Chicken, in the U.S.) as clients.&nbsp;</p>
823.  
824.  
825.  
826. <p>With this Global North-financed fast-food expansion comes a host of environmental, social, and health concerns in regions often unprepared to field them.</p>
827.  
828.  
829.  
830. <p>“It’s so clear that these investments are not consistent with any coherent notion of sustainable development,” Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director for the food and agriculture program at Friends of the Earth US, told DeSmog.&nbsp;</p>
831.  
832.  
833.  
834. <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-providing-financial-security-for-fast-food-suppliers-nbsp">Providing Financial Security for Fast Food Suppliers </h3>
835.  
836.  
837.  
838. <p>Both the IFC and the EBRD are financed primarily by the governments of developed countries for the benefit of developing countries. The IFC was founded in 1956 under the umbrella of the World Bank Group to stimulate developing economies by lending directly to businesses. Founded in 1991, the EBRD was formed to support Eastern Europe’s transition to a market economy. Since then, it has extended its geographic reach to include other regions.&nbsp;</p>
839.  
840.  
841.  
842. <p>Development banks often finance companies and projects in regions that more risk-averse commercial banks tend to avoid. The idea is to help grow a company’s operations and lower the risk for private sector investors.&nbsp;</p>
843.  
844.  
845.  
846. <p>Both of these development banks’ investments cover a range of sectors, including manufacturing, education, agribusiness, energy, and tourism. Because large agro-processors, such as poultry companies, can transform bushel upon bushel of local crops into more valuable products, like meat, they make especially attractive clients.&nbsp;</p>
847.  
848.  
849.  
850. <p>The world’s largest restaurant company, U.S.-based Yum! Brands, owns KFC, and calls the fried chicken powerhouse, which oversees <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kfc-surpasses-30-000-restaurants-worldwide-302086482.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">more than 30,000 locations</a> across the globe, a “major growth engine.” </p>
851.  
852.  
853.  
854. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“It’s so clear that these investments are not consistent with any coherent notion of sustainable development.”</p></blockquote></figure>
855.  
856.  
857.  
858. <p>While Yum does not buy chicken or finance producers itself, like most fast food companies, it requires franchisees — the companies that own the restaurants carrying its brand names — to buy chicken from suppliers it designates. Suppliers tend to be large, vertically integrated operations, often complete with facilities for manufacturing chicken feed and processing and packaging chicken meat.&nbsp;</p>
859.  
860.  
861.  
862. <p>For poultry companies, a Yum contract is one of the most lucrative prizes attainable, as it virtually guarantees sales at quantities few, if any, other buyers can match. But even when Yum restaurants only account for a small portion of a producer’s overall sales, having a relationship with the fast food giant can make a poultry company more appealing to other buyers. As Bruce Layzell, KFC’s then-general manager for new African markets, said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.africaoutlookmag.com/company-profiles/33-kfc-sub-saharan-africa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">2013 interview</a>&nbsp;with the business magazine Africa Outlook, by becoming a KFC supplier, a poultry company can more easily go on to supply other discerning poultry buyers in its region, like hotels and supermarkets.&nbsp;</p>
863.  
864.  
865.  
866. <p>“Our suppliers are growing with us,” Layzell said. “We do a lot of work with them, bringing them up to standard … It is an upfront investment that might not be paid off in the short term, but the point is to get in early, lay down the right standards, and build a relationship.”&nbsp;</p>
867.  
868.  
869.  
870. <p>Even before landing a contract, aspiring KFC suppliers benefit from the assistance of Yum’s global staff of supply chain specialists, who offer advice on how to meet the company’s demanding health and safety standards and increase production to land a deal. </p>
871.  
872.  
873.  
874. <figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong><em>Company</em></strong></td><td><strong><em>HQ</em></strong></td><td><strong><em>Region</em></strong></td><td><strong><em>Brands Served</em></strong></td><td><strong><em>Countries in which it Serves Brands</em></strong></td><td><strong><em>Supporting Banks</em></strong></td><td><strong><em>Type</em></strong></td><td><strong><em>Year</em></strong></td></tr><tr><td>Myronivsky Hliboproduct (MHP)</td><td>Ukraine</td><td>Europe</td><td>KFC, McDonald’s</td><td>Ukraine</td><td>EBRD, IFC</td><td>Loans</td><td>2003 (first)</td></tr><tr><td>Ust-Kamenogorsk Poultry (UKPF)</td><td>Kazakhstan</td><td>Central Asia</td><td>KFC</td><td>Kazakhstan</td><td>EBRD, IFC</td><td>Loan, Equity</td><td>2011 (first)</td></tr><tr><td>Country Bird Holdings (CBH)</td><td>South Africa</td><td>Africa</td><td>KFC</td><td>Botswana, South Africa, Zambia</td><td>IFC</td><td>Loan</td><td>2013</td></tr><tr><td>Al Jazeera Agricultural Company</td><td>Jordan</td><td>Middle East</td><td>KFC, Texas Chicken</td><td>Jordan</td><td>EBRD</td><td>Loan</td><td>2015</td></tr><tr><td>Servolux</td><td>Belarus</td><td>Europe</td><td>KFC</td><td>Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan</td><td>EBRD</td><td>Equity</td><td>2018</td></tr><tr><td>Sedima</td><td>Senegal</td><td>Africa</td><td>KFC</td><td>Senegal</td><td>IFC</td><td>Advisory</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
875.  
876.  
877.  
878. <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-fast-food-s-role-in-global-agriculture-nbsp">Fast Food’s Role in Global Agriculture </h3>
879.  
880.  
881.  
882. <p>For a poultry company, a Yum contract and support from a development bank like the IFC can be mutually reinforcing. Formalizing supplier relationships can be a years-long process. Since both Yum and prospective suppliers tend to stay quiet during that time, it can be difficult to determine whether bank support preceded an arrangement with Yum. Nonetheless, bank support has at times coincided with a supplier’s international expansion.&nbsp;</p>
883.  
884.  
885.  
886. <p>In 2018, for instance, the EBRD <a href="https://www.ebrd.com/work-with-us/projects/psd/servolux-belarus.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">purchased</a> an equity stake in Servolux, a Belarussian poultry company, for $11.7 million to finance upgrades to one of the company’s processing facilities. Two years later, <a href="https://servolux.com/en/press/news/28" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Servolux announced</a> a “strategic partnership” with Yum to supply KFC in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Russia. (Yum has since withdrawn from Russia and severed ties with the country.) The EBRD exited the company, along with all companies in Russia and Belarus in December 2022. </p>
887.  
888.  
889.  
890. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Of the six companies DeSmog examined, four made arrangements with Yum after the banks announced their assistance.</p></blockquote></figure>
891.  
892.  
893.  
894. <p>For another poultry company in Southern Africa, success, aided by the IFC, precipitated an entry into a new region. Two years after South Africa’s Country Bird Holdings&nbsp;<a href="https://disclosures.ifc.org/project-detail/ESRS/32653/country-bird" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">received a $25 million loan</a>&nbsp;from the IFC to expand existing operations in Botswana and Zambia, where it already supplied KFC, the company finalized a purchase of a Nigerian poultry company, Valentine Chickens and quickly integrated that company’s operations into Nigeria’s KFC supply chain.&nbsp;</p>
895.  
896.  
897.  
898. <p>Of the six companies DeSmog examined, four made arrangements with Yum after the banks announced their assistance.&nbsp;</p>
899.  
900.  
901.  
902. <p>The suppliers that benefited from bank support have proven essential to Yum’s expansion. Senegal, for instance, banned imports of frozen chicken in 2006, making local production essential to KFC’s entrance into the country. KFC found a producer, a poultry company called Sedima. Though Sedima was not a beneficiary of IFC financing, the bank “helped the company identify areas in which it could increase efficiency and provided strategic advice,” according to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ifc.org/en/stories/2010/no-borders-no-boundaries" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">2018 report</a>. One year later, KFC opened its first outlet in Senegal, with Sedima serving both as the supplier and franchisee.&nbsp;</p>
903.  
904.  
905.  
906. <p>Francis Owusu, a professor of community and regional planning at Iowa State University, told DeSmog that development finance institutions like the IFC and the EBRD should rethink how they invest in agriculture. The banks “feel it’s hard to work with small farmers because there are so many of them, they don’t have collateral, so it’s much easier to work with bigger institutions,” he said.&nbsp;</p>
907.  
908.  
909.  
910. <p>While the banks may tout the anticipated social benefits of their clients’ projects, they do not require their clients to see those benefits through, he added.</p>
911.  
912.  
913.  
914. <p>“They argue these companies are going to create jobs and sell products to people at a reduced price. As with every trickle-down idea, there’s no way to make sure the trickle down actually trickles down.”</p>
915.  
916.  
917.  
918. <p>While both Yum and McDonald’s regularly attempt to influence agricultural and trade policy in the United States to ensure a more favorable operating environment for their franchisees around the world, a review of lobbying disclosures in the United States found no evidence that either Yum! Brands or McDonald’s lobbied U.S. officials on matters related to the IFC or the EBRD.</p>
919.  
920.  
921.  
922. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;As with every trickle-down idea, there’s no way to make sure the trickle down actually trickles down.”</p></blockquote></figure>
923.  
924.  
925.  
926. <p>But even, apparently, without involving themselves in bank affairs, the fast food industry has long been a factor in the United States’ interactions with foreign countries. U.S. diplomatic officials are regular guests at the opening ceremonies for American fast food restaurants in developing countries. At the opening of the Senegal KFC, for instance, Babacar Ngom, the founder of Sedima,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/18356/vips-fried-chicken-and-sexist-polemic-senegals-first-kfc/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">cut the ribbon</a>&nbsp;while flanked by the Senegalese Trade Minister, Aminata Assome Diatta, and Amy Holman, then Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Dakar.&nbsp;</p>
927.  
928.  
929.  
930. <p>Yum! Brands did not return a request for comment.</p>
931.  
932.  
933.  
934. <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-rise-of-industrial-poultry-in-the-developing-world-nbsp">The Rise of Industrial Poultry in the Developing World </h3>
935.  
936.  
937.  
938. <p>KFC is a natural, if incidental ally to the banks’ development agenda. It was the first international fast food brand to open in Africa, with a restaurant in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the height of apartheid in 1971, and the first to open in China, with a restaurant in Beijing, in 1987. In 1997, KFC’s parent company, PepsiCo, spun off the fried chicken giant along with Taco Bell and Pizza Hut to form a separate company, called Tricon, later renamed Yum! Brands. Financial analysts largely wrote off the new group’s prospects since the United States — its core place of business — was already saturated with fast food.&nbsp;</p>
939.  
940.  
941.  
942. <p>But as household incomes rose in developing countries, Yum found new customers to make up for any losses in its home country. Simultaneously, developing countries, led by Brazil and China, rapidly expanded poultry production. </p>
943.  
944.  
945.  
946. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>KFC is a natural, if incidental ally to the banks’ development agenda.</p></blockquote></figure>
947.  
948.  
949.  
950. <p>In a matter of years, Yum went from a risky bet to a Wall Street darling by channeling the global poultry boom into its network of restaurants and satiating a rising appetite for American fast food. As then-CEO David Novak told investors in 2014, the opportunity for expansion in so-called “emerging markets” was “huge.”&nbsp;</p>
951.  
952.  
953.  
954. <p>“We have three iconic brands and while we have about 60 restaurants per million people in the United States today, we only have two restaurants per million people in the top ten emerging markets, including China and India,” he said. “This is a long runway for international growth and gives us tremendous confidence in our ability to continue our aggressive expansion for many years to come.”</p>
955.  
956.  
957.  
958. <p>At the time, there were about 40,000 restaurants in 125 countries in the Yum system. Today, the number of restaurants has increased to around 55,000, with developing countries accounting for most of the growth. </p>
959.  
960.  
961.  
962. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="723" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-1024x723.webp" alt="" class="wp-image-295759" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-1024x723.webp 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-300x212.webp 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-768x543.webp 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-255x180.webp 255w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-382x270.webp 382w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-573x405.webp 573w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png-828x585.webp 828w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-1-1536x1085.png.webp 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">FAO sorts countries using the World Bank’s Country and Lending Group’s classification system. ‘Lower-middle income’ countries, such as Jordan, Zambia, and Pakistan, are defined as countries with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of $1,136-$4,465 in 2024. ‘Upper-middle income’ countries, such as Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Thailand have a GNI per capita of $4,466-$13,845.</figcaption></figure>
963.  
964.  
965.  
966. <p>As development banks have invested in industrial poultry operations in these countries, finding suitable local suppliers has been easier than ever.</p>
967.  
968.  
969.  
970. <p>Hamerschlag, with Friends of the Earth US, says the development banks should not be so eager to finance livestock operations in developing countries. Large-scale poultry operations, she says, tend to be inefficient users of food crops, like corn, and the people who eat fast food tend to be food-secure middle and upper-class consumers. </p>
971.  
972.  
973.  
974. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Through its lending, the IFC is, in effect, facilitating the expansion and growth of these fast food chains, which in turn increases access to what are arguably some of the most unhealthy foods.”</p></blockquote></figure>
975.  
976.  
977.  
978. <p>Hamerschlag said the IFC typically claims its agricultural investments will enhance food security in developing countries, but that its investments in fast food suppliers showcase a habit of backing projects that benefit relatively well-off consumers instead of poor people. For that reason, helping to build fast food supply chains isn’t just a failure for the poor, she said. It also means undermining the health of developing countries.&nbsp;</p>
979.  
980.  
981.  
982. <p>“Through its lending, the IFC is, in effect, facilitating the expansion and growth of these fast food chains, which in turn increases access to what are arguably some of the most unhealthy foods,” she said.&nbsp;</p>
983.  
984.  
985.  
986. <p>Industrial poultry operations are also a startling contributor to climate change. Though the poultry industry is responsible for less greenhouse gas per unit of meat than beef or dairy, its effect on the climate is substantial. In 2015, broilers, or chickens raised for meat, contributed 368 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent to the atmosphere globally, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://foodandagricultureorganization.shinyapps.io/GLEAMV3_Public/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">an estimate</a>&nbsp;from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) — almost six percent of agriculture-related emissions. (The figure includes both direct emissions from manure and indirect emissions related to the production of feed and energy use at farms.) As a 2020 Guardian&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/02/revealed-development-banks-funding-industrial-livestock-farms-around-the-world" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">investigation</a>&nbsp;found, the EBRD’s and IFC’s backing of industrial meat and dairy threatens to undermine their recent commitments to fighting climate change.&nbsp;</p>
987.  
988.  
989.  
990. <p>The global ascent of fast food and meat, more generally, is also one of the major reasons certain diet-related health conditions once unique to the United States and a few other developed countries have been&nbsp;<a href="https://newint.org/immersive/2021/06/08/when-kfc-came-kenya-fjf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">cropping up</a>&nbsp;in developing regions, like Africa, where local health systems are poorly equipped to treat them. From 2000 to 2016, the global obesity rate increased by 4.4 percent, according to an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.fao.org/3/cc8743en/online/sofi-statistics-africa-2023/adult-obesity.html#:~:text=All%20countries%20of%20Northern%20Africa,percent%20in%20Gabon%20and%20Zimbabwe." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">FAO estimate</a>. In West and Southern Africa, the rate was substantially higher.&nbsp;</p>
991.  
992.  
993.  
994. <p>“As taxpayer-funded entities, IFC and EBRD should require that the recipients of its low-cost financing are&nbsp;<em>avoiding</em>&nbsp;negative environmental and social impacts — not worsening them,” Kelly McNamara, a Friends of the Earth US policy analyst, said. “In the food sector, they should invest in companies that support local farmers to produce healthy, sustainable food for the populations who are most vulnerable to food insecurity — not in companies that are profiting from the expansion of urban fast-food chains.”</p>
995.  
996.  
997.  
998. <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-global-industry-local-problems-nbsp">Global Industry, Local Problems </h3>
999.  
1000.  
1001.  
1002. <p>Neither the IFC nor any of the listed poultry companies returned requests for comment. In response to questions from DeSmog, an EBRD spokesperson said the bank “only works with companies which have a strong sustainability record and are willing to improve their environmental and social practices as well as significantly reduce their carbon footprint. All our projects are structured to meet EU environmental principles, practices, and standards and to address the causes and consequences of climate change.”</p>
1003.  
1004.  
1005.  
1006. <p>Supporters of large-scale meat and poultry operations say they benefit communities by giving local farmers a market for their crops and by lowering the cost of meat, to the benefit of consumers.&nbsp;</p>
1007.  
1008.  
1009.  
1010. <p>But some projects backed by development banks have drawn serious complaints from their neighbors.&nbsp;</p>
1011.  
1012.  
1013.  
1014. <p>From 2003-2022, the IFC and the EBRD provided Ukrainian poultry giant Myronivsky Hliboproduct (MHP) with more than $600 million in loans — support that helped the company become one of the largest agro-processors in Ukraine. After Yum entered Ukraine in 2012, MHP began <a href="https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive/m/LSE_MHPC_2017.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">supplying the nation’s KFCs</a> through a chicken processing plant near Kyiv. In 2020, that plant began supplying Ukrainian McDonald’s and another plant, further west in Vinnytsia Oblast, joined the fast food company’s <a href="https://www.wattagnet.com/articles/43184-mhp-sets-out-sustainability-goals-for-2021?v=preview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">list of certified suppliers</a>.</p>
1015.  
1016.  
1017.  
1018. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Some projects backed by development banks have drawn serious complaints from their neighbors. </p></blockquote></figure>
1019.  
1020.  
1021.  
1022. <p>But years of relentless growth, underwritten by the IFC and the EBRD, have taken a toll on Vinnytsia’s environment and its residents. In complaints filed with both banks’ independent review mechanisms, neighbours of the sprawling complex alleged that MHP’s open-air&nbsp;<a href="https://www.accountabilitycounsel.org/2018/06/complaints-filed-today-about-ukrainian-agribusiness-giant-mhp/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">manure pits</a>&nbsp;have polluted the air and water, killing fish and jeopardising the health of local residents. (The resolution process is ongoing. MHP has denied wrongdoing.)&nbsp;</p>
1023.  
1024.  
1025.  
1026. <p>As MHP joined the war effort by supplying food to Ukrainians in their hour of desperation, the IFC and the EBRD stepped up their investments, committing an additional $230 million to refinance bonds and keep the company running.&nbsp;</p>
1027.  
1028.  
1029.  
1030. <p>In response to questions regarding MHP, the EBRD spokesperson said, “MHP is a long-standing client of the Bank, and as such abides by our stringent social and environmental standards. Being the biggest producer of poultry meat products and one of the top edible oil producers in Ukraine makes it a company of vital importance to Ukraine’s and global food security. MHP also plays a crucial social and economic role in Ukraine, which becomes especially important while the country is at war. It should also be noted that MHP’s key poultry production facilities in Ukraine obtained permits to export their products to EU countries and passed the assessment by relevant authorities of compliance with the EU requirements (including animal welfare requirements).”</p>
1031.  
1032.  
1033.  
1034. <p>Ukrainian KFCs, meanwhile, have also remained open for business. As a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kfc-ukraine.com/suppliers" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">note</a>&nbsp;posted on the KFC Ukraine website reads, KFC’s suppliers, or “background heroes,” in Ukraine are almost entirely local companies.&nbsp;</p>
1035.  
1036.  
1037.  
1038. <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-the-future-of-food-is-chicken">The Future of Food Is Chicken</h3>
1039.  
1040.  
1041.  
1042. <p>Poultry already holds the top spot among global meat production. Given its myriad cost efficiencies, adaptability across regions, religions, and cultures, and its relatively low emissions per unit of meat when compared to beef or pork, we can only expect chicken to take up an even greater role in humanity’s diet in the future, says Ambarish Karamchedu, lecturer in international development education at King’s College London. But fulfilling a rising global hunger for chicken — raised on factory farms — will inevitably come with a steep cost for biodiversity and for people, he says.</p>
1043.  
1044.  
1045.  
1046. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“We must contest the rise of industrial poultry on multiple fronts, for the sake of animal and human labor and the environment that suffers to create a fried chicken leg wrapped in spiced breadcrumbs.”</p></blockquote></figure>
1047.  
1048.  
1049.  
1050. <p>As Karamchedu told DeSmog, the global rise of chicken means developing countries will account for an increasingly large share of the world’s poultry production and consumption, complete with all the pollution and inhumanity the industry entails.&nbsp;</p>
1051.  
1052.  
1053.  
1054. <p>It’s a trend that will likely continue with help from taxpayer-funded development banks such as the IFC and the EBRD, both of which have already pumped billions of dollars into efforts to bring industrial chicken operations into low and middle-income nations.</p>
1055.  
1056.  
1057.  
1058. <p>These taxpayer-supported banks are financing much more than just a fast food chain’s global dominance. But the world does not have to accept that fate, Karamchedu told DesSmog.</p>
1059.  
1060.  
1061.  
1062. <p>“We must contest the rise of industrial poultry on multiple fronts, for the sake of animal and human labor and the environment that suffers to create a fried chicken leg wrapped in spiced breadcrumbs,” he said.</p>
1063. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-fast-foods-global-takeover-was-underwritten-by-development-banks/">How Development Banks Underwrote Fast Food&#8217;s Global Takeover</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1064. ]]></content:encoded>
1066. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-fast-foods-global-takeover-was-underwritten-by-development-banks/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
1067. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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1072. </item>
1073. <item>
1074. <title>Election Offices Are Cash-Strapped After Bans on Private Grants</title>
1075. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/election-offices-are-cash-strapped-after-bans-on-private-grants/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=election-offices-are-cash-strapped-after-bans-on-private-grants</link>
1076. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/election-offices-are-cash-strapped-after-bans-on-private-grants/#respond</comments>
1078. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Matt Vasilogambros /  Stateline]]></dc:creator>
1079. <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:41:34 +0000</pubDate>
1080. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
1081. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
1082. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
1083. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
1084. <category><![CDATA[election day]]></category>
1085. <category><![CDATA[election integrity]]></category>
1086. <category><![CDATA[local elections]]></category>
1087. <category><![CDATA[private grants]]></category>
1088. <category><![CDATA[voting machine]]></category>
1089. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295677</guid>
1090.  
1091. <description><![CDATA[<p>Pushed by conservative activists, 28 states have banned outside funding in elections over the past four years.</p>
1092. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/election-offices-are-cash-strapped-after-bans-on-private-grants/">Election Offices Are Cash-Strapped After Bans on Private Grants</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1093. ]]></description>
1094. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
1095. <p><strong>This month, Wisconsin joined</strong> 27 other states that have banned or restricted local governments’ use of private donations to run cash-strapped election offices, buy voting equipment or hire poll workers for Election Day.</p>
1096.  
1097.  
1098.  
1099. <p>All of the state laws came in the past four years, pushed by conservative lawmakers and activists who claim that Democratic voters disproportionately benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in grants primarily funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, during the 2020 presidential election.</p>
1100.  
1101.  
1102.  
1103. <p>Courts and federal regulators have rejected those claims, but the debate over the role of outside money reveals a broader worry among election experts, who say there are significant shortcomings in local <a href="https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/TheCostofConductingElections-2022.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">government funding</a> of election offices. That includes not just Election Day duties and vote counting, but also the year-round administrative work of maintaining voter rolls and taking care of and updating voting equipment.</p>
1104.  
1105.  
1106.  
1107. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Everyone wants our elections to be secure, accessible, legitimate. And in order to have that, we have to support our election administrators.”</p></blockquote></figure>
1108.  
1109.  
1110.  
1111. <p>Local municipal budgets are tight, and they vary depending on the tax base. It can be hard to justify a new ballot-counting machine when there are potholes to fix or schools to fund.</p>
1112.  
1113.  
1114.  
1115. <p>The ongoing funding uncertainty is untenable, said Tammy Patrick, the chief executive officer for programs at the National Association of Election Officials. Election officials need to have consistent funding to know they can replace outdated equipment and provide a secure and efficient voting experience, she said.</p>
1116.  
1117.  
1118.  
1119. <p>“Ultimately and ideally, we wouldn’t need to run such a critical function of our democracy relying on volunteers or donations,” said Patrick, who is leading&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://emkinstitute.org/about-the-institute/dole-institute-kennedy-institute-launch-initiative-to-strengthen-americas-election-infrastructure/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">a national initiative</a>&nbsp;to promote election funding. “Everyone wants our elections to be secure, accessible, legitimate. And in order to have that, we have to support our election administrators.”</p>
1120.  
1121.  
1122.  
1123. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Funding democracy</h3>
1124.  
1125.  
1126.  
1127. <p>Counting ballots at 2:30 a.m. on election night in 2020, Dusty Farmer, the election clerk of Oshtemo Township, Michigan, realized she should have chosen a high-speed ballot tabulator.</p>
1128.  
1129.  
1130.  
1131. <p>When Michigan voters amended the state constitution in 2018 to allow for voting absentee without having to provide an excuse to officials, the number of mail-in ballots shot up and townships had to find a way to process those new ballots. Farmer opted for the less expensive, slower ballot processors.</p>
1132.  
1133.  
1134.  
1135. <p>After two years of lobbying her local board, she was able to secure the $40,000 high-speed counting machines last year — a “big investment” ahead of the 2024 election, she said.</p>
1136.  
1137.  
1138.  
1139. <p>“This isn’t a situation where we can just overcome it with pure grit and buck up and get it done,” Farmer said. “We need the tools to get it done.”</p>
1140.  
1141.  
1142.  
1143. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“This is an unfunded federal mandate, the only part of our critical infrastructure that does not have sustained federal funding.”</p></blockquote></figure>
1144.  
1145.  
1146.  
1147. <p>Money from Congress has been limited. This year, congressional leaders agreed to provide $55 million in election grant funding for states to distribute locally. That is <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-03/california-recall-election-cost-200-million-dollars" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">around as much</a> as Los Angeles County alone spent conducting a gubernatorial recall election in 2021.</p>
1148.  
1149.  
1150.  
1151. <p>State and local election officials could breathe easier about some of the cybersecurity challenges if they had more funding from Congress, Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said to a room of fellow secretaries of state at a Washington, D.C., meeting in February.</p>
1152.  
1153.  
1154.  
1155. <p>“This is an unfunded federal mandate, the only part of our critical infrastructure that does not have sustained federal funding,” he said.</p>
1156.  
1157.  
1158.  
1159. <p>State money for elections varies widely. Lawmakers in some states do not allocate any of their budget to local election officials. In many cases, states just distribute federal grants for improving election security or as reimbursement for new equipment. Often, however, states hold onto federal grants dollars because they are unsure when the next installment from Congress might come.</p>
1160.  
1161.  
1162.  
1163. <p>Other states&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/TheCostofConductingElections-2022.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">do allocate</a>&nbsp;some local election funding in their budgets, but often not at a level that would allow for major equipment replacement, said Matthew Weil, executive director of the Democracy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a D.C.-based think tank.</p>
1164.  
1165.  
1166.  
1167. <p>States such as Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii and Louisiana also reimburse localities for a portion of elections where statewide candidates are on the ballot,&nbsp;<a href="https://documents.ncsl.org/wwwncsl/Elections/NCSL_Election-Costs_What-States-Pay_Saige-Draeger.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">according to</a>&nbsp;the National Conference of State Legislatures. Alaska and Delaware pay for all expenses of state and federal elections, while other states will pay for statewide special elections or presidential primary elections.</p>
1168.  
1169.  
1170.  
1171. <p>Funding elections mostly at the local level is not the model that is going to work for the future, Weil said.</p>
1172.  
1173.  
1174.  
1175. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>State money for elections varies widely. Lawmakers in some states do not allocate any of their budget to local election officials.</p></blockquote></figure>
1176.  
1177.  
1178.  
1179. <p>But asking state governments to use their limited budgets on election equipment is politically tough, he added; it’s hard to cut a ribbon on a new $100 million voting system. Local governments spend&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2021-09/Lessons-Learned-in-the-2020-Election.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">as much</a>&nbsp;on elections as they do to maintain parking facilities, according to a report by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in 2021.</p>
1180.  
1181.  
1182.  
1183. <p>“I don’t necessarily disagree with banning private funding in elections,” Weil said. “But that does require that counties, states and the federal government step up and fund elections at the levels they need to provide the services that voters have come to expect.”</p>
1184.  
1185.  
1186.  
1187. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Banning private money in elections</h3>
1188.  
1189.  
1190.  
1191. <p>Four years ago, as thousands of Americans died every day during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, local election officials hurriedly prepared for the 2020 presidential election, not knowing whether they had the money needed to allow voters to safely cast a ballot and for their staff to safely count those votes.</p>
1192.  
1193.  
1194.  
1195. <p>Foreseeing a democratic disaster, the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Chicago-based nonprofit, used $350 million from Zuckerberg and Chan to hand out grants to nearly 2,500 local election offices across 49 states.</p>
1196.  
1197.  
1198.  
1199. <p>Local clerks, like Robin Cleveland of Williamstown Township, Michigan, used that money to buy personal protective equipment, pay and train temporary election workers, and run voter education campaigns.</p>
1200.  
1201.  
1202.  
1203. <p>The $5,000 private grant was essential for getting “desperately needed” supplies for her small community east of Lansing, Cleveland said. Though she feels supported by her township board, she has not been able to pay election workers more competitive wages nor replace “ancient” equipment — except in 2018, when she got a federal grant for new ballot tabulators.</p>
1204.  
1205.  
1206.  
1207. <p>“Basically, the money has to come from somewhere if we’re going to have safe, secure and accurate elections,” she wrote to Stateline in an email about private grants.</p>
1208.  
1209.  
1210.  
1211. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Elections are a public function that have to be undertaken with scrupulous neutrality.”</p></blockquote></figure>
1212.  
1213.  
1214.  
1215. <p>In Wisconsin, more than 200 communities received a collective $10 million in private grants. Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee and Racine — the state’s most populous cities —&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/WillLawFINGER-ON-THE-SCALE.9.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">received</a>&nbsp;86% of that money, according to a report by the Wisconsin Institute for Law &amp; Liberty, a conservative litigation group that supported the ballot question to ban private donations for election administration. Those five cities accounted for nearly 18% of the state’s total registered voters.</p>
1216.  
1217.  
1218.  
1219. <p>It was important to prevent outside groups from potentially dictating terms for grants or giving the impression that the money is helping a certain political party, said Rick Esenberg, president of the Wisconsin Institute for Law &amp; Liberty.</p>
1220.  
1221.  
1222.  
1223. <p>“It creates an appearance of impropriety, and it undermines confidence in the outcome of the election,” he said. “Elections are a public function that have to be undertaken with scrupulous neutrality.”</p>
1224.  
1225.  
1226.  
1227. <p>Esenberg doesn’t think elections are underfunded. If local election officials feel like they need more money, he said, they should go to their state legislature.</p>
1228.  
1229.  
1230.  
1231. <p>Voters approved the state’s new constitutional amendment by more than 54%.</p>
1232.  
1233.  
1234.  
1235. <p>Of the 28 states that have now enacted bans, only Pennsylvania supplemented its measure with more election funding. In 2022, then-Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law the compromise measure, which&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2022/07/pa-election-funding-private-donation-ban-budget-deal/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">invested</a>&nbsp;$45 million in local elections.</p>
1236.  
1237.  
1238.  
1239. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘A total lifeline’</h3>
1240.  
1241.  
1242.  
1243. <p>Before Wisconsin’s ban went into effect, Cities Forward, a nonprofit based in the state, awarded an&nbsp;<a href="https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2024/03/11/city-hall-800000-non-partisan-grant-will-improve-milwaukees-election-process/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$800,000 grant</a>&nbsp;to Milwaukee for new ballot tabulators, text messaging services to reach voters and polling place upgrades. Madison was also able to spend&nbsp;<a href="https://captimes.com/news/elections/madison-spent-private-election-funds-before-amendment-banned-them/article_194baf54-f2be-11ee-806e-0bff8bd52c0d.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$1.5 million</a>&nbsp;from Center for Tech and Civic Life and U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence grants before the ban went into place.</p>
1244.  
1245.  
1246.  
1247. <p>The need hasn’t dissipated, said Tiana Epps-Johnson, founder and executive director of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, the nonprofit that drew conservative ire. Election officials need equipment, such as fast-counting ballot processing machines, to prevent delays in results that can fuel misinformation, she said.</p>
1248.  
1249.  
1250.  
1251. <p>“We hear from election officials in every corner of the country who are severely underfunded,” she said. “Right now, election officials run the risk of having equipment that is not up to the task of the demand that they’re going to see from voters this fall.”</p>
1252.  
1253.  
1254.  
1255. <p>Although the Center for Tech and Civic Life is not issuing grants this election cycle, it is a founding partner of the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, which has been distributing money to local offices in states that allow it in the years since the last presidential election.</p>
1256.  
1257.  
1258.  
1259. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Right now, election officials run the risk of having equipment that is not up to the task of the demand that they’re going to see from voters this fall.”</p></blockquote></figure>
1260.  
1261.  
1262.  
1263. <p>Macoupin County, Illinois, a downstate farming community halfway between St. Louis and Springfield, recently&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://macoupincountyil.gov/county-purchases-new-building-for-voting-center-across-from-courthouse/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">received</a>&nbsp;a $500,000 grant to create a new early voting center — an amount equivalent to two years of the county’s election budget.</p>
1264.  
1265.  
1266.  
1267. <p>The voting center, which opened in January, is in a building that used to house an insurance agency and law office. It sits across the street from the courthouse, where early voters used to have to cast ballots in cramped hallways, next to people waiting for their court dates. Election equipment was stored under staircases in a hallway or in the boiler room.</p>
1268.  
1269.  
1270.  
1271. <p>“It was a total lifeline that otherwise never would have happened,” said Pete Duncan, the county clerk. “While we would love for it to have been federal or state funding that came in to help get this accomplished, that’s just not something that the feds or states are interested in doing.”<a href="https://stateline.org/donate" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
1272. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/election-offices-are-cash-strapped-after-bans-on-private-grants/">Election Offices Are Cash-Strapped After Bans on Private Grants</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1273. ]]></content:encoded>
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1276. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
1279. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_88935381-878x585.jpeg" length="579130" type="image/jpeg" />
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1281. </item>
1282. <item>
1283. <title>‘Uncropped’: James Hamilton’s Life in Photos</title>
1284. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uncropped-james-hamiltons-life-in-photos/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=uncropped-james-hamiltons-life-in-photos</link>
1285. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uncropped-james-hamiltons-life-in-photos/#respond</comments>
1287. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Ed Rampell]]></dc:creator>
1288. <pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2024 15:32:46 +0000</pubDate>
1289. <category><![CDATA[Arts & Culture]]></category>
1290. <category><![CDATA[Film]]></category>
1291. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
1292. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
1293. <category><![CDATA[TD Interview]]></category>
1294. <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category>
1295. <category><![CDATA[James Hamilton]]></category>
1296. <category><![CDATA[photography]]></category>
1297. <category><![CDATA[rupert murdoch]]></category>
1298. <category><![CDATA[The Village Voice]]></category>
1299. <category><![CDATA[wes anderson]]></category>
1300. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295723</guid>
1301.  
1302. <description><![CDATA[<p>A new documentary chronicles an iconic New York photography career and the death of the media economy that nourished it.</p>
1303. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uncropped-james-hamiltons-life-in-photos/">‘Uncropped’: James Hamilton’s Life in Photos</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1304. ]]></description>
1305. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
1306. <p class="has-small-font-size"><em>“Uncropped” opens in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Royal, and in New York at Manhattan’s IFC Center and </em><a href="https://sagharborcinema.org/now-playing/james-hamilton-on-film/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><em>the Sag Harbor Cinema</em></a><em>, on April 26.</em></p>
1307.  
1308.  
1309.  
1310. <p class="has-drop-cap">James Hamilton is a photographic auteur with a singular creative vision. In a career spanning more than half a century, he has covered war zones, revolutions and movie sets, from Jerry Garcia to Corazon Aquino to Tiananmen Square. In recent years, he has gained a new generation of admirers by posting decades of his street photography on social media. Though he has shot for dozens of publications, he is perhaps best known for his work for The Village Voice, the nation’s first alternative newsweekly founded in 1955 in New York City, where Hamilton has lived for six decades in the same Greenwich Village apartment.</p>
1311.  
1312.  
1313.  
1314. <p>D.W. Young’s new documentary of Hamilton, executive produced by Wes Anderson, is a rollicking and stylish portrait of its protagonist and the heyday of the alternative weekly, when classified ads subsidized hard-hitting exposes, bold feature writing and boundary-pushing art and photography. I interviewed Hamilton and Young in New York via Zoom. Our conversation has been edited slightly for length and clarity.</p>
1315.  
1316.  
1317.  
1318. <p><strong>TRUTHDIG:</strong> What inspires someone to make a film about James Hamilton?</p>
1319.  
1320.  
1321.  
1322. <p><strong>D.W. YOUNG</strong>: Judith Mizrachy, our producer, saw a lot of his earlier work posted on Facebook during the pandemic. She was blown away. The sense of humor. The strength of the personality, the range of emotions. Wes Anderson talks about it being very cinematic. Judith said, “This work is amazing and hasn’t been seen as much as it should be. What about a documentary about James and his photography?” </p>
1323.  
1324.  
1325.  
1326. <p><strong>TD:</strong> James, what and who drew you to photography?</p>
1327.  
1328.  
1329.  
1330. <p><strong>JAMES HAMILTON</strong>: In 1966, I was studying painting and drawing at Pratt. Normally, in the summer, I would’ve gone back to Westport, Connecticut, where I grew up. But a couple of my friends got an apartment in the Village and said, “Why don’t you stick around for the summer?” It was $109 [laughs] in a great neighborhood just north of Washington Square. The summer of ’66 was a great time to be in New York. I had to get a job to pay for this $109 apartment, [split] three ways, so through a friend of a friend, I got a job working for a fashion photographer who needed an assistant. </p>
1331.  
1332.  
1333.  
1334. <p>I went to see this guy who was just starting out in New York, a Roman named Alberto Rizzo who specialized in fashion and beauty and was setting up a studio. I knew nothing about photography and bluffed my way in. I didn’t know what a strobe was or anything about studio work. But we found out we both loved noir films from the ’40s and ’50s. He hired me on the spot and I learned on the job. I spent the summer wandering around the city using his camera, learning how to develop film, make prints and work in the studio. At the end of the summer, I decided this is what I’m going to do. I never went back to Pratt and I became a photographer. My roommates moved out and I still have that apartment.</p>
1335.  
1336.  
1337.  
1338. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1000" height="680" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295730" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1.jpg 1000w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1-300x204.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1-768x522.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1-265x180.jpg 265w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1-397x270.jpg 397w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1-596x405.jpg 596w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/86JA-1-860x585.jpg 860w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&#8216;Uncropped&#8217; Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment</figcaption></figure>
1339.  
1340.  
1341.  
1342. <p><strong>TD:</strong> Almost 60 years later, how much do you pay for rent?</p>
1343.  
1344.  
1345.  
1346. <p><strong>HAMILTON:</strong> One hundred and forty-seven dollars. Rent control.</p>
1347.  
1348.  
1349.  
1350. <p><strong>TD:</strong> You were there for The Village Voice<em>’s</em> heyday, when Nat Hentoff, James Ridgeway, Jack Newfield, Wayne Barrett, were among its writers, when “New Journalism” was in vogue. What role did the alternative press play in your career?</p>
1351.  
1352.  
1353.  
1354. <p><strong>HAMILTON:</strong> That was my fourth staff job. I’d worked at a rock and roll paper called Crawdaddy, then at a newspaper called The Herald, which was a Sunday broadsheet that had a brief life in New York. It was designed by Massimo Vignelli, it was gorgeous. Then I got hired away by Harper’s Bazaar and was staff photographer there for a few years, doing mostly portraits and endless parties. I was their kind of paparazzo. Then they did a redesign and had no more need for a staff photographer.</p>
1355.  
1356.  
1357.  
1358. <p>I started off freelance for The Village Voice, then they hired me and I stayed there for 20 years — 1973 to 1993. It was a great, great time in journalism and a great time for the Voice, and fantastic for me. When I first started, I worked half a block away, because they moved into my neighborhood. </p>
1359.  
1360.  
1361.  
1362. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>That’s the kind of story we would do, pretty much anything we wanted. In other words, we’d come up with an idea and the next day we were on the job doing it.</p></blockquote></figure>
1363.  
1364.  
1365.  
1366. <p>I was with them all those years. That cast of characters you mentioned were all great writers. I wound up pairing off with writers, I’d go do stories with them. A lot of time I’d go off on my own. But it was great to have writers to work with, alongside. Michael Daly — who became very well known in New York as a newspaper reporter after the Voice — and I once were driving around the Bowery and noticed that there were not only elderly derelicts but young guys. So, we said, “Why don’t we do a story?” We started hanging out there; Michael actually wound up staying at flophouses. We were basically undercover. It was one of those jobs that I did very few pictures on because my camera was hidden in my coat. </p>
1367.  
1368.  
1369.  
1370. <p>That’s the kind of story we would do, pretty much anything we wanted. In other words, we’d come up with an idea and the next day we were on the job doing it. I had lots of assignments, but many of the stories we did were self-starters. If I wanted to meet somebody, like the director George Romero, I’d say, “Why don’t we do a story about George Romero?” The next day I’m flying to Pittsburgh taking pictures of Romero in the mall where he shot “Dawn of the Dead.” We became great pals, and he said, “Why don’t you become my still photographer?” So, I became the still photographer on films. </p>
1371.  
1372.  
1373.  
1374. <p>At the Fillmore East and I photographed [a lot of musicians] onstage and off: The Allman Brothers, The Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash &amp; Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jethro Tull, Big Brother &amp; The Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Albert King, Santana, Country Joe McDonald &amp; The Fish, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, The Byrds, Led Zeppelin, Mothers of Invention, Miles Davis, Taj Mahal, Johnny Winter, Van Morrison…</p>
1375.  
1376.  
1377.  
1378. <p>I processed all my film and printed in my apartment and kept everything I’ve ever shot. And I own everything I ever shot.</p>
1379.  
1380.  
1381.  
1382. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="778" height="527" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75MAY_1JH2714-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295735" style="width:838px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75MAY_1JH2714-2.jpg 778w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75MAY_1JH2714-2-300x203.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75MAY_1JH2714-2-768x520.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75MAY_1JH2714-2-266x180.jpg 266w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75MAY_1JH2714-2-399x270.jpg 399w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75MAY_1JH2714-2-598x405.jpg 598w" sizes="(max-width: 778px) 100vw, 778px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&#8216;Uncropped&#8217; Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment</figcaption></figure>
1383.  
1384.  
1385.  
1386. <p><strong>TD:</strong> The Voice’s<em> </em>Richard Goldstein, who’s also interviewed in “Uncropped,” describes the Voice’s<em> </em>aesthetic as: “The merger of art and journalism.” What does he mean?</p>
1387.  
1388.  
1389.  
1390. <p><strong>YOUNG</strong>: I don’t want to overly interpret Richard’s take, but an additional part of that quote is key, because he talks about them being in a state of constant conflict — almost a dialectical state. They’re both present — art and journalism — but they’re never at ease with each other. That’s very important as far as the Voice is concerned, the sense that they’re both pushing. But the idea that you’re allowed to pursue aesthetic interests at the same time and that was not less valid than the political. This coexistence of the two, the uneasiness of the relationship, is what Richard is talking about.</p>
1391.  
1392.  
1393.  
1394. <p>Examples are helpful to back up Richard’s point. On the writing side, Jill Johnston writing without punctuation drove people crazy, yet she was allowed to do it. That’s not normal for a newspaper, right? Greg Tate writing about post-structuralist theory. Stuff so outside the norms of what is expected from a newspaper — it was not only allowed to exist, but to proliferate, really.</p>
1395.  
1396.  
1397.  
1398. <p><strong>HAMILTON</strong>: I had an art background, so I thought of everything I did as my art. But I also thought of it as my personal journal, my personal history. I always had the history of my life and the life of New York on my mind when I was taking pictures. I started out taking pictures in the street and just wandering around with a camera doing all of that. Everything I did from the beginning came from the experience of wandering around and only taking pictures for myself. I was never allowed to be a hack. I was always shooting for myself, keeping all of the work close at hand, close to hand, developing and printing everything myself. I could not think of it as anything else but my art, my craft, my business, my life. Journalism was a title, but I always thought of it as my work and personal view of things.</p>
1399.  
1400.  
1401.  
1402. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Everything I did from the beginning came from the experience of wandering around and only taking pictures for myself.</p></blockquote></figure>
1403.  
1404.  
1405.  
1406. <p>I was allowed at the Voice<em> </em>to have that point of view throughout. They never cropped my pictures, ever. I had a wonderful art director who I met at Pratt. We understood each other; he loved photography. There was a co-staff [photographer] there named Sylvia Plachy, whose work was different enough from mine that we got along very well. She had the same privileges. She could do anything she wanted. She even had a page called “The Unguided Tour,”<em> </em>which was a picture she took of anything she wanted and it [ran] every week. So, it was that kind of freedom we were allowed. Having a great and considerate art department, and writers telling great stories all contributed to, as Goldstein said, great art and great journalism.  </p>
1407.  
1408.  
1409.  
1410. <p>When Cory Aquino was trying to run the Philippines, and celebrating people’s power, the Voice<em> </em>actually sent Joe Conason and I to the Philippines to cover her [presidential] campaign. We came back, did the story, published the pictures and then Marcos was overthrown [laughs] and they sent us back to the Philippines. Not a lot of alternate weekly publications would have done that, I don’t think. </p>
1411.  
1412.  
1413.  
1414. <p>I covered lots of wars. Joe and I were at Tiananmen Square when it [the 1989 protests] happened. We’d been nagging them to send us there. Then, when it looked like it was all going to be over, they said, “Okay, you can go.” We went with a young woman translator and joined Chinese students, and it all happened, the massacre. We sent our film out of murdered students which ran on the cover of the Village Voice — nobody had those pictures. It was remarkable that they would do that in those days.<em> </em></p>
1415.  
1416.  
1417.  
1418. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1000" height="677" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295733" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy.jpg 1000w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy-300x203.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy-768x520.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy-266x180.jpg 266w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy-399x270.jpg 399w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy-598x405.jpg 598w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH9001copy-864x585.jpg 864w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&#8216;Uncropped&#8217; Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment</figcaption></figure>
1419.  
1420.  
1421.  
1422. <p><strong>TD:</strong> Joe Conason says in an interview in “Uncropped,” “James was an adrenaline junkie.” What does he mean?</p>
1423.  
1424.  
1425.  
1426. <p><strong>HAMILTON</strong>: [Laughs.] Pretty much that I was a fool. I took risks that I should not have taken. War photography did not come naturally to me, but getting the picture came naturally to me. I probably did things I should not have done. I put maybe both of us in danger. </p>
1427.  
1428.  
1429.  
1430. <p><strong>TD:</strong> What part did Rupert Murdoch play in the demise of the Village Voice?</p>
1431.  
1432.  
1433.  
1434. <p><strong>YOUNG</strong>: From my understanding, he didn’t play any part in it. What’s interesting, when he bought the paper [in 1977], he was actually subsidizing the [New York] Post<em> </em>with the Voice. Which is a crazy thing, if you think about it. Because the Voice was making a very nice amount of money for him at that point. But then he sold the paper [in 1985] and he didn’t hold onto it too long. From him, it started the chain of a succession of increasingly problematic owners that got more and more problematic. Tricia [Romano’s] book outlines that fairly well.</p>
1435.  
1436.  
1437.  
1438. <p><strong>TD:</strong> James, you mentioned working for the New York Observer. Was that boy wonder Jared Kushner as qualified to be a publisher as he was to be a White House adviser and the head of a private equity firm financed by the Saudis? Joe Conason says in the film that Kushner “turned a broadsheet into a tabloid.”</p>
1439.  
1440.  
1441.  
1442. <p><strong>HAMILTON</strong>: I was there 15 years. Basically, I was lured away from the Voice. They said I could do two pictures a week, anything I wanted. Same as what Sylvia had, only there were two and were quite large. It became like my column, in a sense. I called it “Two and Four,” because there was one on page two, then you turned the page, and there was one on page four. I’d make a game of it, because I had to set some limitations for myself, because I could do anything I wanted. I’d have some subtle link to each other, something about them would be ironically similar. All those years, every week — a set of two pictures. And I did all the other pictures in the paper, too. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun.</p>
1443.  
1444.  
1445.  
1446. <p>Then, the last few years, yes, Jared Kushner bought the paper and was much more concerned with business and real estate. I was photographing suits and offices, and it became no more fun. They eliminated the two pictures and made it just one picture, and it had to be a portrait of someone in town that week. I felt like I was working for the paycheck, which was something I’d never, ever done. It was a bad time in my career.</p>
1447.  
1448.  
1449.  
1450. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1000" height="682" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295734" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874.jpg 1000w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874-300x205.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874-768x524.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874-264x180.jpg 264w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874-396x270.jpg 396w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874-594x405.jpg 594w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/75JUNE_1JH9874-858x585.jpg 858w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&#8216;Uncropped&#8217; Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment</figcaption></figure>
1451.  
1452.  
1453.  
1454. <p><strong>TD:</strong> Why did you title the film “Uncropped”? </p>
1455.  
1456.  
1457.  
1458. <p><strong>YOUNG</strong>: It was my title. We struggled with titles for this, because how do you pin James down? How do you pin down all of the many facets of his work, his career, the places where he’s worked? It’s representative of the way he was able to work with so much independence and control over his work. There’s another level of meaning about the publications themselves, like the Voice, existing in a similar way.</p>
1459.  
1460.  
1461.  
1462. <p><strong>TD:</strong> In cinema, a handful of directors have “final cut.” I guess one could say James had “final crop.”</p>
1463.  
1464.  
1465.  
1466. <p><strong>HAMILTON</strong>: [Laughs.] David [D.W.] had final cut, too. I admire people who have final cut.</p>
1467.  
1468.  
1469.  
1470. <p><strong>TD:</strong> James, tell us about your photographic sensibility?</p>
1471.  
1472.  
1473.  
1474. <p><strong>HAMILTON:</strong> I always thought of the work as a history, personal and otherwise. A lot of the pictures are stories. I was always very aware of composition — that came from drawing and painting and my art background. I got past the camera to the extent that I could be very spontaneous and clear and aware of composition, spontaneously. My pictures are pretty well composed.</p>
1475.  
1476.  
1477.  
1478. <p>I learned so much in the street. I don’t call that my “street” — I call them my “random” pictures, basically pictures on the way to jobs. My background was very much wandering around New York. That’s what I loved doing most. To the point where I look back at pictures and I can’t even remember taking them, because I was always working, always taking pictures. I’m amazed sometimes when I see pictures that I just have no recollection of ever even being in that location and taking that picture.   </p>
1479.  
1480.  
1481.  
1482. <p><strong>TD:</strong> What cameras do you prefer?</p>
1483.  
1484.  
1485.  
1486. <p><strong>HAMILTON:</strong> I started out with a Nikon F 35mm camera. I’ve only used two cameras in my career. I borrowed the Nikon Rangefinder from the photographer that I worked for and used that for a little while. Then I bought the Nikon F, and used that up until the mid-80s. Then I was doing covers and full pages for New York<em> </em>magazine, and the format meant that if I was going to have a full page, they would have to crop my 35mm frame. So, I switched cameras to a Pentax 645, the negative or transparency was the same format as that page, so they would not crop my pictures [laughs] if I used that camera. Then I fell in love with that camera as a medium format camera, the quality was really great. I used that from the mid-’80s until now.</p>
1487.  
1488.  
1489.  
1490. <p>I started shooting digital because I had to. I was working on a film, doing stills for a movie, and they wanted digital images. Up until then I was using this big clunky, noisy Pentax 645 without a blimp, a silencer, so I’d run in and take pictures at the end of a scene. Obviously, I wouldn’t shoot during the scene. When I was working with Wes Anderson he was fine with that. And Noah Baumbach, as well. That’s how I shot those films. Then, once I worked on a film and they required I got a digital camera, starting in 2007.</p>
1491.  
1492.  
1493.  
1494. <figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="750" height="509" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH2647-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295732" style="width:840px;height:auto" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH2647-2.jpg 750w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH2647-2-300x204.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH2647-2-265x180.jpg 265w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH2647-2-398x270.jpg 398w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1JH2647-2-597x405.jpg 597w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&#8216;Uncropped&#8217; Courtesy Greenwich Entertainment</figcaption></figure>
1495.  
1496.  
1497.  
1498. <p><strong>TD:</strong> Earlier in this interview, and on screen, you state that you “own everything” and “only handed in what you wanted” and publications “never touched the negatives.” Why?</p>
1499.  
1500.  
1501.  
1502. <p><strong>HAMILTON:</strong> When I was working at Harper’s Bazaar, I’d see them throwing out prints and negatives. I just never wanted that to happen. And I’d never have anyone develop my film anyway. I did a job for the London Sunday Times, they sent me to Ethiopia to cover the war, and I said I’d do it, as long as when I finish — which turned out to be months later — I can use your darkroom to do all my own developing, and they said fine. It was that important to me that I have control over the processing of my work, prints and negatives. It’s important to me because it’s a matter of control.  </p>
1503.  
1504.  
1505.  
1506. <p><strong>TD:</strong> Where can we see your pictures now?</p>
1507.  
1508.  
1509.  
1510. <p class="is-td-marked"><strong>HAMILTON:</strong> During the pandemic, I had time to organize and edit my photos and put them online. And I did a book. After a car accident that destroyed my leg, Thurston Moore, from Sonic Youth, who publishes books, said, “Why don’t we do a book of your musicians?” While I was laid up, we did “You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen,” a line from a Bo Diddley song.</p>
1511. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uncropped-james-hamiltons-life-in-photos/">‘Uncropped’: James Hamilton’s Life in Photos</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1512. ]]></content:encoded>
1514. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uncropped-james-hamiltons-life-in-photos/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
1515. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
1518. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Loucopy.jpg" length="69585" type="image/jpeg" />
1519. <media:thumbnail url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Loucopy.jpg" />
1520. </item>
1521. <item>
1522. <title>Is It Illegal To Cross the United States Border Between Ports-of-Entry?</title>
1523. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/is-it-illegal-to-cross-the-united-states-border-between-ports-of-entry/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=is-it-illegal-to-cross-the-united-states-border-between-ports-of-entry</link>
1524. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/is-it-illegal-to-cross-the-united-states-border-between-ports-of-entry/#respond</comments>
1526. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Lillian Perlmutter]]></dc:creator>
1527. <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 17:18:02 +0000</pubDate>
1528. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
1529. <category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
1530. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
1531. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
1532. <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category>
1533. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
1534. <category><![CDATA[border crisis]]></category>
1535. <category><![CDATA[border patrol]]></category>
1536. <category><![CDATA[greg abbott]]></category>
1537. <category><![CDATA[immigrants]]></category>
1538. <category><![CDATA[port of entry]]></category>
1539. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295710</guid>
1540.  
1541. <description><![CDATA[<p>As the media continues to cover "unlawful" crossings, it is important to understand what this really means.</p>
1542. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/is-it-illegal-to-cross-the-united-states-border-between-ports-of-entry/">Is It Illegal To Cross the United States Border Between Ports-of-Entry?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1543. ]]></description>
1544. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
1545. <p class="has-drop-cap">As thousands of asylum-seekers have crossed the border at points other than official ports every day over the past few years, this legal question holds weight and complexity. With ubiquitous references in newspapers and on TV to “illegal” or “unlawful” crossings, what does this really mean? </p>
1546.  
1547.  
1548.  
1549. <p>Technically, it is a misdemeanor offense to cross the border between ports-of-entry, no matter one’s legal status, citizen, resident or other. This law is rarely enforced — the U.S. justice system simply does not have the gargantuan capacity necessary to process every misdemeanor trespassing offense. </p>
1550.  
1551.  
1552.  
1553. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM-768x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295711" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM-225x300.jpg 225w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM-135x180.jpg 135w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM-203x270.jpg 203w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM-304x405.jpg 304w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM-439x585.jpg 439w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GGJW-X-XkAADYWM.jpg 1536w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">An explainer <a href="https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1757057233970397258" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">posted to X</a> by American Immigration Council Policy Director, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick.</figcaption></figure>
1554.  
1555.  
1556.  
1557. <p>Most people seeking asylum choose to enter the United States between ports, just crossing the river and standing by the wall until Border Patrol trucks arrive and they can turn themselves in, thereby breaking the law, albeit a very minor offense. Why? Because to wait months for an appointment on the CBP One app, which involves meeting Border Patrol agents at an official port, avoiding the misdemeanor, requires time and money most migrants do not possess. These asylum-seekers are thus breaking the law in order to enter the legal asylum process, acting against the law to access a legal right. </p>
1558.  
1559.  
1560.  
1561. <p class="is-td-marked">Now, the Texas government has passed a law that would require Texas state agents to enforce punishments for this misdemeanor crime along the Texas border, which would include jail time. This means arresting as many asylum-seekers as there is space in Texas jails. This new development would mean some migrants would have conflicting statuses with state and federal authorities. The law was blocked by a federal court, but the decision will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court.</p>
1562. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/is-it-illegal-to-cross-the-united-states-border-between-ports-of-entry/">Is It Illegal To Cross the United States Border Between Ports-of-Entry?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1563. ]]></content:encoded>
1565. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/is-it-illegal-to-cross-the-united-states-border-between-ports-of-entry/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
1566. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
1569. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP23361607929861-877x585.jpg" length="682501" type="image/jpeg" />
1570. <media:thumbnail url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP23361607929861-877x585.jpg" />
1571. </item>
1572. <item>
1573. <title>Biden Designates $7 Billion To Make Solar More Affordable</title>
1574. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/biden-designates-7-billion-to-make-solar-affordable-for-low-income-families/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=biden-designates-7-billion-to-make-solar-affordable-for-low-income-families</link>
1575. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/biden-designates-7-billion-to-make-solar-affordable-for-low-income-families/#respond</comments>
1577. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Syris Valentine /  Grist]]></dc:creator>
1578. <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 15:54:23 +0000</pubDate>
1579. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
1580. <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category>
1581. <category><![CDATA[Economic Justice]]></category>
1582. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
1583. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
1584. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
1585. <category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category>
1586. <category><![CDATA[joe biden]]></category>
1587. <category><![CDATA[renewable energy]]></category>
1588. <category><![CDATA[solar for all]]></category>
1589. <category><![CDATA[solar power]]></category>
1590. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295699</guid>
1591.  
1592. <description><![CDATA[<p>The White House's 'Solar for All' program is designed to reduce greenhouse emissions and energy inequity.</p>
1593. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/biden-designates-7-billion-to-make-solar-affordable-for-low-income-families/">Biden Designates $7 Billion To Make Solar More Affordable</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1594. ]]></description>
1595. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
1596. <p class="has-small-font-size">This story was originally published by <a href="https://grist.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Grist</a>. Sign up for Grist’s <a href="https://go.grist.org/signup/weekly/partner?utm_campaign=republish-content&amp;utm_medium=syndication&amp;utm_source=partner" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">weekly newsletter here</a>.</p>
1597.  
1598.  
1599.  
1600. <p><strong>Clean energy</strong>, like so many commodities in this country, is <a href="https://grist.org/indigenous/a-transition-to-clean-energy-was-supposed-to-be-equitable-instead-its-hurting-indigenous-communities/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">neither distributed evenly nor equally</a>. Disadvantaged communities have <a href="https://grist.org/energy/commercial-roof-space-is-an-untapped-trove-of-clean-energy-for-low-income-communities/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">far fewer solar panels</a> arrayed across their rooftops than areas with higher incomes. The federal government just took a major step toward crossing that chasm.</p>
1601.  
1602.  
1603.  
1604. <p>On Monday, President Joe Biden announced the 60 organizations that, under the administration’s Solar for All program, will receive a combined $7 billion in grants to bring&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/energy/solar-hits-a-renewable-energy-milestone-not-seen-since-wwii/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">residential solar</a>&nbsp;to low-income neighborhoods. The funding will flow into state, municipal, and tribal governments as well as nonprofits to support existing programs for&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/fix/cities/clean-energy-programs-poor-equity-maps/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">low-income solar and battery storage</a>&nbsp;installations and spur new ones. Such efforts are expected to bring affordable clean energy to 900,000 households.</p>
1605.  
1606.  
1607.  
1608. <p>While the climate and environmental benefits of this effort are critical, the households poised to benefit will feel the most immediate impacts on their pocketbooks.</p>
1609.  
1610.  
1611.  
1612. <p>“Low-income families can spend up to 30 percent of their paychecks on their energy bills,” Biden said while announcing the funding in Virginia. “It’s outrageous.”</p>
1613.  
1614.  
1615.  
1616. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The funding will flow into state, municipal, and tribal governments as well as nonprofits to support existing programs for <a href="https://grist.org/fix/cities/clean-energy-programs-poor-equity-maps/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">low-income solar and battery storage</a> installations and spur new ones.</p></blockquote></figure>
1617.  
1618.  
1619.  
1620. <p>That reality is central to the administration’s program, which will cut energy costs for those families who monitor their spending to ensure they can make it to the end of the month. By bringing rooftop and community solar to communities in need, Solar for All could save energy-burdened families on average $400 a year.</p>
1621.  
1622.  
1623.  
1624. <p>The 60 recipients were selected by dozens of review panels composed of experts from across the executive branch. The Environmental Protection Agency will finalize contract details in the days and weeks ahead, and awardees are expected to receive the funding in summer to begin implementing their efforts.</p>
1625.  
1626.  
1627.  
1628. <p>Without the low-income solar programs that will be established and expanded with these funds, most families can’t afford to place energy-producing panels atop their homes. Most&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/buildings/more-churches-plugging-solar-power/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">rooftop installations</a>&nbsp;cost tens of thousands of dollars, and even with a long-term loan and the promise of a year-end tax credit to help cover a steep upfront cost, that places the technology out of reach for many Americans.</p>
1629.  
1630.  
1631.  
1632. <p>As Solar for All brings energy savings to low-income and disadvantaged families nationwide — advancing Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which aims to ensure that at least 40 percent of climate investments directly benefit frontline communities — it will also accelerate progress toward the administration’s goal of achieving 100 percent clean energy nationwide by 2035. The EPA estimates that the $7 billion will underwrite 4 gigawatts of solar installations nationwide, enough to power more than 3 million homes. All told, the program is expected to prevent over 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from ever entering the atmosphere while also creating 200,000 jobs and affording tribal nations an improved path to energy sovereignty.</p>
1633.  
1634.  
1635.  
1636. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“This is a once-in-a-generation award that will begin to transform how tribes achieve energy sovereignty.”</p></blockquote></figure>
1637.  
1638.  
1639.  
1640. <p>For years, Indigenous communities across America have been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-equity/power-by-the-people-native-energy-sovereignty" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">using solar and other renewables to liberate themselves</a>&nbsp;from an energy system that pollutes their air and establish something that they own. With $500 million slated specifically for tribal governments, Solar for All can help accelerate those efforts. One such award for over $135 million will go to the Northern Plains Tribal Coalition, a partnership of 14 Indigenous nations brought together by the Native-led nonprofit Indigenized Energy and the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.</p>
1641.  
1642.  
1643.  
1644. <p>“This is a once-in-a-generation award that will begin to transform how tribes achieve energy sovereignty,” Cody Two Bears, executive director of Indigenized Energy, said in a press release. “The shift from extractive energy to regenerative energy systems will be the legacy we leave for our future generations.”</p>
1645. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/biden-designates-7-billion-to-make-solar-affordable-for-low-income-families/">Biden Designates $7 Billion To Make Solar More Affordable</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1646. ]]></content:encoded>
1648. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/biden-designates-7-billion-to-make-solar-affordable-for-low-income-families/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
1649. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
1652. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_352874973-876x585.jpeg" length="599440" type="image/jpeg" />
1653. <media:thumbnail url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_352874973-876x585.jpeg" />
1654. </item>
1655. <item>
1656. <title>The Pentagon Is Quietly Enlisting Its Officers in Corporate America</title>
1657. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-is-quietly-enlisting-its-officers-in-corporate-america/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-pentagon-is-quietly-enlisting-its-officers-in-corporate-america</link>
1658. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-is-quietly-enlisting-its-officers-in-corporate-america/#respond</comments>
1660. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Brett Heinz /  Responsible Statecraft]]></dc:creator>
1661. <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 15:47:08 +0000</pubDate>
1662. <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category>
1663. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
1664. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
1665. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
1666. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
1667. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
1668. <category><![CDATA[boeing]]></category>
1669. <category><![CDATA[corruption]]></category>
1670. <category><![CDATA[pentagon]]></category>
1671. <category><![CDATA[raytheon]]></category>
1672. <category><![CDATA[SDEF]]></category>
1673. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295691</guid>
1674.  
1675. <description><![CDATA[<p>A new report exposes a largely unknown fellowship that gives major arms companies outsized influence in defense policy.</p>
1676. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-is-quietly-enlisting-its-officers-in-corporate-america/">The Pentagon Is Quietly Enlisting Its Officers in Corporate America</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1677. ]]></description>
1678. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
1679. <p><strong>The government should</strong> do more business with McKinsey &amp; Co. — one of the world’s largest consulting firms — says a Pentagon presentation: “Leverage [the] consulting firm’s expertise and objectivity – outsourcing is a positive action.” While this might sound like a talking point from lobbyists, it actually came from an active-duty naval commander who spent almost a full year working at McKinsey &amp; Co. with you, the taxpayer, footing the bill.</p>
1680.  
1681.  
1682.  
1683. <p>It’s no secret that major defense companies&nbsp;<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/capitalizing-on-conflict/defense-contractors" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">spend millions</a>&nbsp;to influence the U.S. government in hopes of securing contracts, favorable treatment, and higher profits. What’s less known is that the military has a program that subsidizes these efforts. A&nbsp;<a href="https://quincyinst.org/research/subsidizing-the-military-industrial-complex-a-review-of-the-secretary-of-defense-executive-fellows-sdef-program/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">new Quincy Institute report</a>&nbsp;I co-authored with Ben Freeman, director of QI’s Democratizing Foreign Policy program, provides the first ever in-depth look into a Pentagon program that gives big businesses a unique avenue for influencing senior military policymakers.</p>
1684.  
1685.  
1686.  
1687. <p>Each year, the Pentagon sends military officers to work for major corporations through the <a href="https://prhome.defense.gov/Readiness/Organization/FET/SDEF/Overview/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows (SDEF)</a> program. The intention is for fellows to gather insights about how these companies are organized and then present their findings to high-ranking military officials, along with recommendations for reforms that the military should consider. In practice, however, the reforms suggested to the Pentagon represent a free opportunity for the large contractors hosting fellows to push the government towards adopting corporate-friendly policies.</p>
1688.  
1689.  
1690.  
1691. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Each year, the Pentagon sends military officers to work for major corporations through the <a href="https://prhome.defense.gov/Readiness/Organization/FET/SDEF/Overview/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Secretary of Defense Executive Fellows (SDEF)</a> program.</p></blockquote></figure>
1692.  
1693.  
1694.  
1695. <p>Since its creation in 1995, the largest beneficiaries of the SDEF program have been some of the nation’s largest defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), and Boeing. These companies receive nearly a free year of labor from their military fellows, direct insight into the activities of both the government and their competitors, and a unique method through which they can push self-interested suggestions upon their largest customer: the Department of Defense (DOD).</p>
1696.  
1697.  
1698.  
1699. <p>It is no coincidence that many of these suggestions are proposals that would benefit companies involved in the program.</p>
1700.  
1701.  
1702.  
1703. <p>SDEF recommendations to the government are packed full of glaring conflicts of interest. For example, the contractor-dominated program advised the Pentagon to hire more contractors, subsidize them directly, reduce oversight and transparency, and give contractors more political power so that they can “Help craft National Security Strategy.”</p>
1704.  
1705.  
1706.  
1707. <p>We documented numerous examples of fellows making policy recommendations that would specifically benefit the company they worked for. Fellows at companies who export billions in weapons each year called for the government to loosen arms trade regulations. A fellow at a railroad company suggested that the DOD consider using railroads more, a fellow at a machinery rental company suggested the DOD rent more machinery, and a fellow at a private utility suggested the DOD continue buying energy from private utilities. In perhaps the most glaring example, one fellow had company officials craft some of his recommendations, including suggestions to modify outsourcing rules and make it easier for the firm to work with DOD. That firm was Enron, and the recommendations were made just six months before the company imploded.</p>
1708.  
1709.  
1710.  
1711. <p>Many of the participating companies have not been shy about using the program to advance their agendas with the government. At least 18 companies participating in the SDEF program have assigned their fellows to work in public sector contracting and “government relations” positions, essentially using them to develop closer relationships with the military. One fellow at a biopharmaceutical company was assigned the task of “Exploiting DoD value from [the] biotech sector;” naturally, they recommended that the DOD invest more in biotech.</p>
1712.  
1713.  
1714.  
1715. <p>The effects of the program do not end here; it also appears to encourage a revolving door between industry and government. Looking at a large sample of former SDEF fellows, we found that 43% have worked for a government contractor since leaving the program. Comparing this sample to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-104311.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">a study</a>&nbsp;of all Pentagon officials done by the Government Accountability Office, former SDEF fellows appear to pass through the revolving door to work for large government contractors at more than twice the rate of other DOD personnel.</p>
1716.  
1717.  
1718.  
1719. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Revolving door practices threaten the integrity of the government by creating an open invitation for corruption and unethical behavior.</p></blockquote></figure>
1720.  
1721.  
1722.  
1723. <p>In some cases, fellows even go on to work for the exact same companies where they had been assigned, essentially using this government program as a launching pad for a lucrative career in the private sector.</p>
1724.  
1725.  
1726.  
1727. <p>Revolving door practices threaten the integrity of the government by creating an open invitation for corruption and unethical behavior. Still, the SDEF program shows no signs of recognizing this as a problem. In fact, the SDEF once advised that it should be easier for military officials to pass back and forth between the military and private industry, despite the tremendous accountability problems such a reform would produce.</p>
1728.  
1729.  
1730.  
1731. <p>The SDEF program is based on the idea that national interests and corporate interests are closely aligned. It aims to, according to an SDEF&nbsp;<a href="https://prhome.defense.gov/Portals/52/Documents/SDEF%20Final%20Out-Brief%202021-2022.pptx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">PowerPoint presentation</a>, “Treat corporate sponsors as potential extensions to the [national] security apparatus,” arguing that powerful companies help to create a “safe and secure world.” They therefore believe that the military should not only partner with industry, but should actively “promote industry.”</p>
1732.  
1733.  
1734.  
1735. <p>Yet the behavior of the companies participating in the SDEF program makes it clear that the national interest often takes a back seat to the firm’s interests, namely its profits. When given the opportunity, firms will push for policy reforms that have little to do with an effective defense strategy, but everything to do with their bottom line. Allowing big businesses such a privileged opportunity to influence military policymakers serves to benefit shareholders and executives, not the American people.</p>
1736.  
1737.  
1738.  
1739. <p>The DOD should reconsider the SDEF program as it currently exists, either by reforming the way it functions, downsizing it, or eliminating it entirely. Until then, it will continue to serve as a corporate handout and a tool for the military-industrial complex to maintain its grip on U.S. defense policy.</p>
1740.  
1741.  
1742.  
1743. <p>The director of the SDEF program did not respond to multiple requests for comment.</p>
1744. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-is-quietly-enlisting-its-officers-in-corporate-america/">The Pentagon Is Quietly Enlisting Its Officers in Corporate America</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1745. ]]></content:encoded>
1747. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-pentagon-is-quietly-enlisting-its-officers-in-corporate-america/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
1748. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
1751. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_514604711_Editorial_Use_Only-1040x585.jpeg" length="278981" type="image/jpeg" />
1752. <media:thumbnail url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_514604711_Editorial_Use_Only-1040x585.jpeg" />
1753. </item>
1754. <item>
1755. <title>Why Progressives Should Welcome Jonathan Majors&#8217; Light Sentence</title>
1756. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/progressives-should-welcome-jonathan-majors-sentence-even-if-it-feels-wrong/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=progressives-should-welcome-jonathan-majors-sentence-even-if-it-feels-wrong</link>
1757. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/progressives-should-welcome-jonathan-majors-sentence-even-if-it-feels-wrong/#respond</comments>
1759. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Freddie deBoer]]></dc:creator>
1760. <pubDate>Tue, 23 Apr 2024 15:37:19 +0000</pubDate>
1761. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
1762. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
1763. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
1764. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
1765. <category><![CDATA[Prison Reform]]></category>
1766. <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
1767. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
1768. <category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>
1769. <category><![CDATA[criminal justice reform]]></category>
1770. <category><![CDATA[domestic violence]]></category>
1771. <category><![CDATA[incarceration]]></category>
1772. <category><![CDATA[jonathan majors]]></category>
1773. <category><![CDATA[sentencing]]></category>
1774. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295681</guid>
1775.  
1776. <description><![CDATA[<p>Ending mass incarceration requires accepting greater leniency for people who do genuinely bad things.</p>
1777. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/progressives-should-welcome-jonathan-majors-sentence-even-if-it-feels-wrong/">Why Progressives Should Welcome Jonathan Majors&#8217; Light Sentence</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1778. ]]></description>
1779. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
1780. <p><em>The following story is co-published with&nbsp;<a href="https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/perhaps-liking-or-not-liking-taylor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Freddie deBoer’s Substack</a>.</em></p>
1781.  
1782.  
1783.  
1784. <p class="has-drop-cap">Earlier this month, the actor Jonathan Majors was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/nyregion/jonathan-majors-sentencing.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">sentenced</a> to a year of domestic violence counseling after being found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend. The response to the sentencing was muted. While there was plenty of social media chatter, some of it anguished, there were few think pieces to be found. Much of the cultural media seemed to find the whole situation to be sordid, and many of the places that you might expect to cover a domestic violence trial ran only brief aggregations of news items about the sentencing. (It would certainly have attracted more commentary in 2018, but that was a different country and a different media and a different internet.) I often turn to Reddit to get a sense of what people are saying about current events; <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1byzrh7/jonathan_majors_sentenced_to_probation_but_no/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">at r/news</a>, unsurprisingly, there was a good deal of angst over a sentence that was perceived to be too light. Twitter had similar thoughts, as did TikTok. Mostly though people seem to want to move on. The Cut devoted <a href="https://www.thecut.com/article/batterer-intervention-programs-domestic-violence.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">an entire piece</a> to hemming and hawing about this type of program, maintaining a permanent ambivalence, but it doesn’t come out and directly object to the Majors sentence.</p>
1785.  
1786.  
1787.  
1788. <p>In general I didn’t hear much outrage. And I think that might be a sign of progress. Because while I certainly understand having mixed feelings about the sentence, it’s exactly the kind of alternative to prison that we need to solve mass incarceration. Prosecutors didn’t ask for jail time, the judge didn’t hand down any, and a first-time Black offender was diverted out of the penal system. That’s exactly what those of us who support comprehensive criminal justice reform have been calling for, these past years. Isn’t it?</p>
1789.  
1790.  
1791.  
1792. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>While I certainly understand having mixed feelings about the sentence, it’s exactly the kind of alternative to prison that we need to solve mass incarceration.</p></blockquote></figure>
1793.  
1794.  
1795.  
1796. <p>When I spoke at MIT recently, I pulled a rhetorical move that I admit is a little cheap, but which does help to clarify things. I asked students if they thought that, from a social justice standpoint, a man should go to jail for punching someone in the face, once, as a first-time offender. They all seemed to feel that, no, such a person should not go to jail, that such a punishment is too extreme for the crime. That’s more or less how I feel, too. But then I asked them “What if that person is his wife?,” and watched the confusion spread. Their certainty about what was just suddenly deserted them. The anti-carceral instincts of many progressives are often complicated by “identity crimes,” in this way. There’s a generic sense that our justice system should be more lenient and more forgiving, except when it comes to crimes like domestic violence or sexual assault or hate crimes, in which case the punishments are immediately assumed to be too lenient and too forgiving. Of course I understand that there are specific concerns with these offenses, but given what a big and slow-turning ship the American criminal justice system is, there actually are tensions here that need to be resolved.</p>
1797.  
1798.  
1799.  
1800. <p>The story of Aaron Persky is remarkable, in that it was a liberal cause celebre that immediately preceded another liberal cause celebre that cut in the exact opposite direction. Persky was the judge who handed down the infamous Brock Turner verdict, sentencing the white Stanford student and swimmer to six months in prison for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. This was immediately seized on as a vestige of “rape culture,” which perhaps it was. Less convincingly, liberals also insisted that it was an example of racial inequality, that Turner received a light sentence because he was white. In subsequent investigations, absolutely no evidence was found that Persky had ever presided in a racially biased way; he was, instead, simply a lenient judge, given to handing down lighter sentences than his peers. It happens that this is exactly what we’re looking for in criminal justice reform &#8211; a big part of our mass incarceration problem stems from the fact that judges are&nbsp;<a href="https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2033&amp;context=wmborj" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">much more aggressive</a>&nbsp;than they once were, giving out harsher sentences than their counterparts from earlier eras. Persky was an exception to this tendency towards harsh sentencing, and it appears that this leniency applied to most everyone. But the narrative that Persky was a rape-enabling racist was too juicy for liberals to set aside, in the height of the Yelling Social Justice era, and so Persky was forced off the bench.</p>
1801.  
1802.  
1803.  
1804. <p>A <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/718357" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">subsequent study</a> found that, as everyone should have expected, the Persky controversy led other judges to pass harsher sentences, and given the structural realities of our system this burden fell especially on Black and Hispanic men. You can say, hey, that’s not what we intended! But it’s a perfectly predictable expression of basic human incentives; when you say to a bunch of judges “be harsher, or it might just cost you your job,” they’re going to be harsher, including to the people you believe should receive less harsh treatment. The system just doesn’t work that surgically, to accept calls for harsher sentencing but only when the defendant is convenient. This is why simply saying, “oh, it’s different if the person he punches is his wife” doesn’t work, because that attitude presumes that we can reform criminal justice with a scalpel. If we’re going to reform it at all, we need to be prepared to do so with sledgehammers, and we’re going to have to commit to not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.</p>
1805.  
1806.  
1807.  
1808. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>To actually confront the practical and political and moral problems with our harsh penal system, we have to want more humane outcomes for the people who <em>are </em>guilty.</p></blockquote></figure>
1809.  
1810.  
1811.  
1812. <p>Well, the Persky affair is ancient history now. (So’s the&nbsp;<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2015/05/manspreading-can-get-you-arrested.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">anti-manspreading law</a>, remember that? The 2010s were a wild time.) What I wish a story like the Majors case might provoke is some grappling with a basic fact: for criminal justice reform to mean anything, for it to work quantitatively but also morally, we must push for lighter and more humane sentences&nbsp;<em>for bad people</em>. It drives me crazy when people talk about criminal justice reform and fixate on the wrongfully accused. I mean, obviously, we shouldn’t arrest or try or convict those who are wrongfully accused, that’s a given. But to actually confront the practical and political and moral problems with our harsh penal system, we have to want more humane outcomes for the people who&nbsp;<em>are&nbsp;</em>guilty. And, no, not just nonviolent drug offenders either. I’m glad this information finally appears to be filtering out there: nonviolent drug offenders are a small part of the overall incarcerated population, across local jails, state prisons, and federal penitentiaries, and they’re also not the only population worthy of getting more chances at rehabilitation. The Prison Policy Initiative has been covering this ground for a long time.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">As they point out</a>, only one in five incarcerated people in the United States is locked up due to a drug offense. I’m in favor of decriminalization of all drugs, on libertarian grounds, and there are many aspects of the Drug War that are uniquely pernicious. But drugs just aren’t the biggest part of the problem.</p>
1813.  
1814.  
1815.  
1816. <p>No, to effectively combat mass incarcerations and its evils, we’re going to need to take a less retributive approach to all of it,&nbsp;<em>including identity crimes like sexual assault and domestic violence.&nbsp;</em>Luckily enough, despite what people were so fond of saying, so briefly, there’s a lot of room for extensive reform that does not constitute abolishing prisons or defunding the police. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit and many potential punishments that result in serious intervention without throwing people in jail for years. There’s a whole corpus of thoughtful commentary on such options; the work of the late Mark Kleiman is a great place to start. I personally think the “shock to the system” approach of giving people very short (less than a month) prison stays for certain first offenses holds some promise. Of course some of my readers will reject the whole concept of a more humane and rehabilitative approach to criminal justice, that too is a given. But if you’re like me and you think that we need to make our system less retributive, you have to accept that this is going to result in less harsh punishment for guys we really don’t like. Even, perhaps, guys like Brock Turner. That’s what adult politics is; it’s a stumbling, grasping wander through different bad choices. Sorry.</p>
1817.  
1818.  
1819.  
1820. <p class="is-td-marked">Is Jonathan Majors a bad guy? He’s not a great one, if he’s guilty of what he’s been accused of, I’m confident of that. Of course, a more apt point is to ask, who am I to say? Perhaps the overriding failure of American liberalism, in the past fifteen or so years, has been a relentless overemphasis on <em>personal moral judgment</em>, the misguided notion that judging is at the heart of politics, that judging is action. I wouldn’t want Jonathan Majors dating someone I care for, that’s for sure. But I also understand that the business of politics is something very different from that kind of personal, emotional attitude. Here in the realm of politics and policy, I do believe in rehabilitation, and in forgiveness. I won’t shed any tears over his destroyed career. But more importantly, most importantly, whether he’s a good guy just isn’t important when it comes to what we want to save him from, and what we want to save ourselves from in freeing men like him.<a href="https://substack.com/profile/1874495-take5?utm_source=post-reactions-face" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"></a></p>
1821. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/progressives-should-welcome-jonathan-majors-sentence-even-if-it-feels-wrong/">Why Progressives Should Welcome Jonathan Majors&#8217; Light Sentence</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1822. ]]></content:encoded>
1824. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/progressives-should-welcome-jonathan-majors-sentence-even-if-it-feels-wrong/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
1825. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
1828. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP23352779270643-878x585.jpg" length="308122" type="image/jpeg" />
1829. <media:thumbnail url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP23352779270643-878x585.jpg" />
1830. </item>
1831. <item>
1832. <title>Morocco’s War Against the Sahrawi</title>
1833. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/moroccos-war-against-the-sahrawi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=moroccos-war-against-the-sahrawi</link>
1834. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/moroccos-war-against-the-sahrawi/#respond</comments>
1836. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Kushner]]></dc:creator>
1837. <pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2024 20:53:38 +0000</pubDate>
1838. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
1839. <category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
1840. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
1841. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
1842. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
1843. <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
1844. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
1845. <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category>
1846. <category><![CDATA[covid-19]]></category>
1847. <category><![CDATA[morocco]]></category>
1848. <category><![CDATA[Polisario Front]]></category>
1849. <category><![CDATA[Sultana Khaya]]></category>
1850. <category><![CDATA[western sahara]]></category>
1851. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295619</guid>
1852.  
1853. <description><![CDATA[<p>In the Phosphorus-rich Western Sahara, the government in Rabat used the pandemic as cover for a bloody political crackdown.</p>
1854. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/moroccos-war-against-the-sahrawi/">Morocco’s War Against the Sahrawi</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
1855. ]]></description>
1856. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
1857. <p>LAAYOUNE, Western Sahara — One day in November 2020, Sultana Khaya was driving to her home in the town of Boujdour when she was detained at a Moroccan military checkpoint. It seemed as if the officers were waiting for her. They dragged her to a police station where she claims officers sexually assaulted her, then placed her under house arrest along with her sister, Luara, and their elderly mother.</p>
1858.  
1859.  
1860.  
1861. <p>Khaya is president of the Sahrawi Association for the Defense of Human Rights and an activist who fights for independence for Western Sahara, a land about the size of Colorado, 80% of which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975, the other 20% of which is controlled by the Polisario Front, a nationalist movement working to liberate the territory from Morocco. The United Nations calls Western Sahara a <a href="https://studentbriefs.law.gwu.edu/ilpb/2021/10/25/the-curious-case-of-western-sahara/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Non-Self-Governing Territory</a> lacking any administrative power.</p>
1862.  
1863.  
1864.  
1865. <p>Tensions there have been heating up since 2020, when a 29-year-long ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front collapsed and fighting resumed. Independence activists seized the moment to organize protests and resistance efforts; Morocco’s crackdown was swift and furious.&nbsp;</p>
1866.  
1867.  
1868.  
1869. <p>These events occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-24/covid-crackdown-snuffs-out-flickering-embers-of-the-arab-spring" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Morocco weaponized the health crisis</a> for political ends, placing activists under house arrest under the auspices of distancing measures, and shutting down independent newspapers on the unsupportable basis that people touching their pages might spread the virus.&nbsp;</p>
1870.  
1871.  
1872.  
1873. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“When COVID-19 started, all the human rights defenders were held prisoners in their homes.”</p></blockquote></figure>
1874.  
1875.  
1876.  
1877. <p>During her confinement, Khaya says, she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Moroccan security forces. When she contracted COVID-19 in 2021, with fevers running as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit, she was effectively denied medical treatment&nbsp; —including basic medicine such as paracetamol — on account of her house arrest. “When it comes to the health sector in the occupied territories, there is basically nothing, no access,” she said. Khaya says she has never been presented with any criminal charges or a court order authorizing what became a 482-day detention under the auspices of Morocco’s COVID-19 lockdown.</p>
1878.  
1879.  
1880.  
1881. <p>“When COVID-19 started, all the human rights defenders were held prisoners in their homes,” Khaya said over an encrypted call. “These political actions just confirm to us that we are victims of a conspiracy between Morocco and its allies. As Sahrawis, we know we are targeted.”</p>
1882.  
1883.  
1884.  
1885. <p>Governments across the Middle East and the globe, from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/28/venezuela-human-rights-watch-coronavirus-crackdown" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Venezuela</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/06/turkey-stifling-free-expression-during-the-covid19-pandemic" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Turkey</a> to Kenya and Cameroon, have used the pandemic as an excuse to violate human rights, according to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2020/12/governments-and-police-must-stop-using-pandemic-as-pretext-for-abuse/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Amnesty International</a>. But Morocco’s crackdown on Sahrawi independence activists has intensified since the pandemic, too. Since November 2020, Amnesty International has <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/MDE2944042021ENGLISH.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">documented</a> nearly two dozen cases of torture, home raids, house arrests, arrests, detentions and harassment — including against journalists, human rights defenders and minors. “The Moroccan authorities have intensified their spate of violations against pro-independence Sahrawi activists … to silence or punish them for their peaceful activism,” the group wrote.&nbsp;</p>
1886.  
1887.  
1888.  
1889. <p>A <a href="https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=25731" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">joint statement</a> issued by U.N. special rapporteurs in January 2021 denounced abuses against eight human rights defenders in Western Sahara, citing allegations of violations including violence, death threats, physical surveillance, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment in detention and torture at the hands of Moroccan security forces. Today, as much of the world’s attention fixes on Israel’s war on Palestine, some Sahrawis are <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/western-sahara-morocco-palestine-israel-recognition-sovereignty-activists-call-solidarity" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pleading for solidarity</a> with the plight of a different occupation, one that the world has largely forgotten.</p>
1890.  
1891.  
1892.  
1893. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295655" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-270x180.jpg 270w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-405x270.jpg 405w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-608x405.jpg 608w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_8638-878x585.jpg 878w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A billboard image of Mohammed VI, king of Morocco. He&nbsp;was quick to take action against COVID-19 in 2020 but many Sahrawis have a strong distrust of the government. Photo by Kang-Chun Cheng</figcaption></figure>
1894.  
1895.  
1896.  
1897. <p class="has-drop-cap">Morocco is Africa’s <a href="https://www.bloom-consulting.com/en/pdf/rankings/Bloom_Consulting_Country_Brand_Ranking_Tourism.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">third-largest</a> tourist destination, known for colorful medinas full of spices and rugs, a rich architectural heritage, surfing-ready beaches and imposing mountain ranges. At about half a million square kilometers, Morocco is just slightly larger than California. It is also home to a stretch of the Sahara Desert — which takes up about <a href="about:blank" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">40% </a>of the landmass — that is the battleground of the Sahrawis’ 50-year struggle.</p>
1898.  
1899.  
1900.  
1901. <p>The current conflict dates to 1975, when Spain relinquished its colonial rule of Morocco’s Western Sahara region. Today, Western Sahara is home to fewer than 600,000 souls, or roughly 10% of the population of Wisconsin. Western Sahara holds an average of just <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/western-sahara-population/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">six people</a> per square mile of desert — <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Sahara-desert-Africa/People#:~:text=Although%20as%20large%20as%20the,(0.4%20per%20square%20kilometre)." rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">six times</a> the population density of the Sahara as a whole — most of whom live in towns, cities or refugee camps.&nbsp; Starting in the 1970s, the Kingdom of Morocco fought for territorial claims to the land. Morocco’s main interest in the region was its rich reserves of phosphorus, a key global component of agricultural fertilizers. Today Morocco controls <a href="https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-001112_EN.html#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20biggest%20mines,known%20phosphorus%20reserves%5B3%5D." rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">70% </a>of the world’s phosphate-rock reserves.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
1902.  
1903.  
1904.  
1905. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The current conflict dates to 1975, when Spain relinquished its colonial rule of Morocco’s Western Sahara region.</p></blockquote></figure>
1906.  
1907.  
1908.  
1909. <p>In the 1970s, Morocco encouraged tens of thousands of settlers to build homes and sent soldiers to root out the young Polisario Front, founded in 1973 as an independence movement against the Spanish. In 1980, Morocco began constructing a now 1,700-mile long wall, the Berm, to seal off the territory it controlled from the areas controlled by the Polisario Front. Land mines were planted in and around the Berm to deter Polisario rebels from attempting to cross. The grueling war finally ended with a 1991 ceasefire brokered by the U.N. and African Union.&nbsp;</p>
1910.  
1911.  
1912.  
1913. <p>But the ceasefire did not end <a href="https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/sr166.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">disputes</a> over the territories’ borders and a proposed census to determine who can vote in an independence referendum. In the decades since, Morocco has repeatedly rejected a U.N. peace plan and refused to allow the vote to go ahead. As a result, much of Western Sahara remains under de-facto annexation by Morocco — a violation of international law. Morocco keeps the territory under strict surveillance and stamps out <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/oppression-is-brutal-morocco-breaks-up-western-sahara-protest-ahead-of-un-talks/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">peaceful advocacy</a> for liberation with physical force. In Morocco, even the term “Western Sahara” is highly taboo. Moroccans use euphemisms like “southern Morocco” instead.</p>
1914.  
1915.  
1916.  
1917. <p>Only a small portion of the phosphate riches Morocco controls today are actually in Western Sahara, explains Erik Hagen, director of the advocacy group Norwegian Support Committee for Western Sahara, “but from a Sahrawi perspective, it’s massive. This could be a mine that could build their future welfare state. Polisario has been very vocal about Morocco’s plunder of Sahara’s phosphates. The occupation is costly — attracting settlers [requires] subsidies, infrastructure.” Western Sahara’s phosphate, says Hagen, “helps to pay that bill.”&nbsp;</p>
1918.  
1919.  
1920.  
1921. <p>In 2017, Sahrawi and international pressure on companies to stop buying pilfered phosphate from Western Sahara began to see results. Seizures of ships by the South African government carrying the commodity stopped shipments around the Cape of Good Hope and through the Panama Canal. But shipments around the Cape have resumed since rebels in Yemen began attacking cargo ships in the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel’s war on Gaza. Once Morocco completes a new port on the Saharan coast that will allow it to export processed phosphate, Hagen says, “the Moroccans may be able to attract foreign companies and governments into the plunder directly” because “there is only a small number of factories in the world that have the ability to transform unprocessed phosphate rock into fertilizers.”&nbsp;</p>
1922.  
1923.  
1924.  
1925. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Much of Western Sahara remains under de-facto annexation by Morocco — a violation of international law.</p></blockquote></figure>
1926.  
1927.  
1928.  
1929. <p>In 2010, Morocco arrested 65-year-old Sahrawi activist Sid’Ahmed Lemjaid, who has long <a href="https://wsrw.org/es/archive/1049" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">advocated</a> against Morocco’s sale of phosphates from Western Sahara, after he visited a Sahrawi refugee camp to interview its residents. He was later sentenced to life in prison for allegedly attempting to murder Moroccan officials — crimes to which Morocco’s government claims he confessed. (Lemjaid says he was tortured). In 2023, the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/detention-wg/opinions/session96/A-HRC-WGAD-2023-23-AEV.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">called</a> for the immediate release of Lemjaid and 17 other Sahrawi political prisoners’ who are in jail or under house arrest.&nbsp;</p>
1930.  
1931.  
1932.  
1933. <p>Among them is 39-year-old Mahfouda Lefkir, whose home Moroccan security forces raided in May 2023. She was charged with obstructing justice and detained for days in solitary confinement.&nbsp;</p>
1934.  
1935.  
1936.  
1937. <p>“I was thrown into a very small and foul-smelling cell with humidity, darkness and cold, without any blankets and with insects,” Lefkir told human rights investigators. “Then I was taken to an interrogation room where they undressed me completely and left me naked. Twice they interrogated me about my relationship with the Polisario Front, my political activities, my involvement in protest gatherings.”</p>
1938.  
1939.  
1940.  
1941. <p>She says Morocco has kept her under strict house arrest ever since.</p>
1942.  
1943.  
1944.  
1945. <p class="has-drop-cap">Morocco scores just above Pakistan, and well below El Salvador, in rankings of “global freedom” compiled by Freedom House, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group. The COVID-19 crisis provided the cover for its government to step up its repression of Sahrawi activists like Khaya and Lefkir.&nbsp;</p>
1946.  
1947.  
1948.  
1949. <p>By the data, Morocco, a lower-middle-income country, should have been at a disadvantage in fighting the spread of COVID-19. Morocco<a href="https://www.ghsindex.org/country/morocco/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> ranks</a> 108 out of 195 countries, and 11<sup>th</sup> in Africa, on the<a href="https://www.ghsindex.org/about/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> Global Health Security Index</a>. Still, the government performed admirably at acquiring vaccines and distributing them — in Morocco: the government claims more than two-thirds of Moroccans have received a vaccine, just below the global average. (This success may not encompass Western Sahara: Morocco does not keep data on the territory, making it <a href="https://covid19.who.int/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">a blank spot</a> on the World Health Organization’s map of COVID-19 cases, deaths and vaccines.)</p>
1950.  
1951.  
1952.  
1953. <p>Human rights activists say any successes in Morocco must be weighed against the authorities’ use of the pandemic as an excuse to muzzle its people, as the government was strict about enforcing distancing measures when they went hand-in-hand with repressing independence activists.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
1954.  
1955.  
1956.  
1957. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Human rights activists say any successes in Morocco must be weighed against the authorities’ use of the pandemic as an excuse to muzzle its people.</p></blockquote></figure>
1958.  
1959.  
1960.  
1961. <p>For its part, Morocco has denied that it kept the activist Sultana Khaya under house arrest at all. But the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined that the Khayas’ house arrest <a href="https://vest-sahara.no/en/news/un-body-deemed-sultana-khaya-house-arrest-arbitrary" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">lacked any legal basis</a>, reporting that they were “deprived of their liberty on discriminatory grounds, because of their status as Sahrawis and their political opinions in favor of the self-determination of Western Sahara.” The case has also been acknowledged by Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Department of State.&nbsp;</p>
1962.  
1963.  
1964.  
1965. <p>A year into Khaya’s house arrest, on Nov. 8, 2021, Moroccan security agents in plainclothes again raided her home. She said one officer <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/woman-human-rights-defender-sultana-khaya-attacked-her-home" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">injected</a> her right hip with an unknown substance. Another said to her, “Now you will be sick. You will be unable to protest.” She said the injection made her dizzy, caused her to vomit, and that it caused her to lose feeling and movement in her right arm and leg. Seven months later, in late May 2022, she decided to try and escape house arrest and go into exile. Security officers<a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/resources/activist-successfully-leaves-home-after-18-months" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> trailed her </a>from her home in Boujdour to Laayoune, the territory’s largest city and unofficial capital. But when she went to board a flight to Spain’s Canary Islands, off the Saharan coast, authorities did not prevent her from leaving.&nbsp;</p>
1966.  
1967.  
1968.  
1969. <p>Upon her arrival in Spain, Khaya received medical and psychological treatment for the trauma she suffered during her 18-month-long house arrest. It was there that she received her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.</p>
1970.  
1971.  
1972.  
1973. <p>Khaya isn’t the only Sahrawi activist to allege Morocco denied health care to dissidents who came down with the disease. Among them is the family of Mbarek Daoudi, a lifelong dissident who was imprisoned for revealing to foreign journalists the gravesite of a family he watched Moroccan soldiers’ massacre in 1976.</p>
1974.  
1975.  
1976.  
1977. <p>In late August, 2021, Daoudi was at home in Guelmim when his health took a sudden turn. He was suffering from shortness of breath and tested positive for COVID-19 at a hospital in Laayoune. He was admitted to the military hospital in Klimim, where, his family alleges, he was denied treatment. He received oxygen, but only for a day due to citywide medical supply shortages.&nbsp;</p>
1978.  
1979.  
1980.  
1981. <figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-295656" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-270x180.jpg 270w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-405x270.jpg 405w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-608x405.jpg 608w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_5606-878x585.jpg 878w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A woman exiting a medical facility in Laayoune, Western Sahara&#8217;s unofficial capital.&nbsp;Information about the state of COVID-19 infections, deaths and vaccinations are scarce in the disputed region of Western Sahara. Photo by Kang-Chun Cheng</figcaption></figure>
1982.  
1983.  
1984.  
1985. <p>Without oxygen support, Daoudi&#8217;s health deteriorated again, which he communicated to his son Hassan over a call. “My mother, my brothers Taha and Ibrahim went and protested in front of the hospital,” demanding better treatment for the activist, said Hassan. “It actually worked. The hospital director was forced to give him oxygen.”</p>
1986.  
1987.  
1988.  
1989. <p>A week later, the doctor in charge informed Daoudi’s family that he had recovered but would needed an oxygen machine upon discharge — the doctor provided a medical certificate to purchase a 5-liter generator, which his sons managed to buy for 2,800 euros despite the scarcity of such medical equipment in Laayoune. Just two days after his discharge, in September 2021, Daoudi passed away at age 65. His family and friends accuse the military hospital — and by extension, Morocco’s government — of failing to properly treat him. Hassan believes that his father’s untimely death was “all a government scheme,” a point of view shared with other Daoudi supporters. (Truthdig was unable to reach Morocco’s military for comment as it does not maintain a functioning <a href="https://recrutement.far.ma/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">website</a> and its <a href="https://twitter.com/MoroccanArmed?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Twitter</a> account does not allow direct messages.)</p>
1990.  
1991.  
1992.  
1993. <p>“The general opinion persists in the occupied territories that COVID is being used as a weapon against the Saharawi civilian population,&#8221; wrote the family’s attorney, Cristina Martínez Benítez de Lugo. &#8220;The Saharawis never trust Moroccan hospitals. Entering a hospital with COVID is entering to die.”</p>
1994.  
1995.  
1996.  
1997. <p>If Morocco’s authorities view political opponents like Khaya and Daoudi as threats, the press has fallen in Morocco’s crosshairs, too. Morocco ranks <a href="https://rsf.org/en/country/morocco-western-sahara" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">135 out of 180 countries</a> in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index, which lists it as “not free,” <a href="https://rsf.org/en/index" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">placing it among</a> autocratic countries like Zimbabwe and Rwanda, as well as neighboring Algeria. (One study found<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14662043.2021.1916207?journalCode=fccp20" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> a strong correlation</a> between countries’ press freedom and their manipulation of COVID-19 data.)</p>
1998.  
1999.  
2000.  
2001. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;The Saharawis never trust Moroccan hospitals. Entering a hospital with COVID is entering to die.”</p></blockquote></figure>
2002.  
2003.  
2004.  
2005. <p>Last year, Morocco <a href="https://cpj.org/2023/10/morocco-denies-jailed-journalist-omar-radi-post-surgical-care-in-hospital/#:~:text=Press%20freedom%20advocates%20in%20Morocco,Radi%E2%80%94were%20imprisoned%20in%20Morocco." rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">denied health care</a> to imprisoned journalist Omar Radi, whom authorities arrested six years earlier on baseless charges of undermining state security and sexual assault after he <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/11/25/morocco-journalist-prison-after-unfair-trial#:~:text=Radi%2C%20an%20award%2Dwinning%20investigative,at%20a%20fraction%20of%20market" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">exposed</a> a corruption scandal in which top Moroccan officials were stealing land.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
2006.  
2007.  
2008.  
2009. <p>The status of the Western Sahara is one of “many subjects that have been implicitly off limits for Morocco’s journalists in recent years,” according to Reporters Without Borders. “Recent additions to the list include the security services, the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the crackdown on street protests.”</p>
2010.  
2011.  
2012.  
2013. <p>The government’s actions seem to have affected Sahrawis’ attitudes toward protecting themselves from the COVID-19 virus. Many whom Truthdig spoke to expressed skepticism about vaccines. “I’m afraid that if I get the vaccine, I might die,” said a Sahrawi truck driver, Mohammed, in Laayoune. Here, “there’s a lot of people that don’t get the vaccine.”</p>
2014.  
2015.  
2016.  
2017. <p>“It’s because it comes from the government that people don’t agree,” said Noufan, an unvaccinated college student who also expressed doubts about the safety and efficacy of scientifically-proven COVID-19 vaccines. “Some people even cheat and buy a fake certificate,” a classmate named Yahdiha chimed in. “Then there are the objectors who have an opinion against the government — not because they’re Sahrawi, but they’re against government politicians” of any sort.&nbsp;</p>
2018.  
2019.  
2020.  
2021. <p>“Culture and religion play a role here,” a professor and translator who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons told Truthdig. But the primary driver for vaccine hesitancy is that Sahrawis “don’t trust the government and [think that] everything offered by authority will affect them badly.”</p>
2022.  
2023.  
2024.  
2025. <p class="has-drop-cap">As a small territory with little standing on the international stage, Western Sahara is easily buffeted by geopolitical shifts. After losing the 2020 election, following decades of U.S. support for Sahrawi’s right to vote for independence, the Trump administration reversed course and endorsed Morocco’s rule. The change was announced in tandem with Morocco’s normalization of relations with Israel.&nbsp;</p>
2026.  
2027.  
2028.  
2029. <p>“The United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory,” <a href="https://ma.usembassy.gov/joint-declaration/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">declared</a> the U.S. Embassy in Morocco’s capital, Rabat. “To facilitate progress toward this aim, the United States will encourage economic and social development with Morocco, including in the Western Sahara territory.” Spain soon followed America’s lead, endorsing Morocco’s formal occupation.&nbsp;</p>
2030.  
2031.  
2032.  
2033. <p>Thus emboldened, King Mohammed VI delivered a <a href="https://minurso.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/sg_report_october_2022_0.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">speech</a> on Nov. 6, 2021, asserting, “Morocco is not negotiating over its Sahara” since “the Moroccanness of the Sahara is an immutable and indisputable fact” while paying lip service to Morocco’s “commitment to a peaceful solution” to the fate of Western Sahara.&nbsp;</p>
2034.  
2035.  
2036.  
2037. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Morocco relies on the same tools and methods as Israel in suppressing the Palestinians, occupying them, displacing them from their land, robbing them of their wealth and controlling them.”</p></blockquote></figure>
2038.  
2039.  
2040.  
2041. <p>In October 2022, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres <a href="https://minurso.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/sg_report_october_2022_0.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">expressed</a> his concern for “significant deterioration of the situation in Western Sahara.” He attributed low-intensity hostilities between Morocco and the Polisario Front to both regional tensions and COVID-19, mentioning drone strikes by the Royal Moroccan Army that have resulted in civilian casualties. “Provocations confirm Morocco’s aim to sow and maintain tensions in the region,” he wrote.&nbsp;</p>
2042.  
2043.  
2044.  
2045. <p>That same month, another <a href="https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-ali-salem-tamek" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">longtime</a> Sahrawi activist, Ali Salem Tamek, was allegedly <a href="https://www.spsrasd.info/en/2023/10/22/776.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">assaulted</a> by security forces in Laayoune. Tamek routinely documents human rights issues as a founding member of the Western Sahara branch of the Forum for Truth and Justice and vice president of the Sahrawi Collective of Human Rights Defenders.&nbsp;</p>
2046.  
2047.  
2048.  
2049. <p>One year later, hundreds of thousands of people began <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-arab-normalization-agreements-0c4707ff246c0c25d1ca001f8b1e734a" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">taking to the streets</a> to protest Israel’s military assault and invasion of Gaza.&nbsp;</p>
2050.  
2051.  
2052.  
2053. <p>“There is a total similarity between what is happening in the Western Sahara and Palestine,” Mohammed Elbaikam, a Sahrawi activist, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/western-sahara-morocco-palestine-israel-recognition-sovereignty-activists-call-solidarity" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">told Middle East Eye.</a> “Morocco relies on the same tools and methods as Israel in suppressing the Palestinians, occupying them, displacing them from their land, robbing them of their wealth and controlling them.”</p>
2054.  
2055.  
2056.  
2057. <p class="is-td-marked">In November, <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/11/27/moroccan-activists-arrested-for-demanding-end-to-normalization-of-ties-with-israel/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">thousands of Moroccan protesters</a> gathered in Casablanca to protest Morocco’s newfound support for Israel. But whether Moroccans will take the political risk of extending their solidarity with occupied Palestinians to occupied <em>Sahrawis,</em> remains to be seen.</p>
2058.  
2059.  
2060.  
2061. <p class="has-small-font-size"><em>Kang-Chun Cheng and a translator in Laayoune who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, contributed reporting.</em></p>
2062.  
2063.  
2064.  
2065. <p class="has-small-font-size">Jacob Kushner&#8217;s forthcoming book, <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/jacob-kushner/look-away/9781538708118/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><em>Look Away: A True Story of Murders, Bombings, and a Far-Right Campaign to Rid Germany of Immigrants</em></a>, will be published in May 2024 by Grand Central (Hachette).</p>
2066. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/moroccos-war-against-the-sahrawi/">Morocco’s War Against the Sahrawi</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2067. ]]></content:encoded>
2069. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/moroccos-war-against-the-sahrawi/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
2070. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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2076. <item>
2077. <title>UAW Wins Big in Tennessee</title>
2078. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uaw-wins-big-in-tennessee/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=uaw-wins-big-in-tennessee</link>
2079. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uaw-wins-big-in-tennessee/#respond</comments>
2081. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bob Bussel /  The Conversation ]]></dc:creator>
2082. <pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:27:03 +0000</pubDate>
2083. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
2084. <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category>
2085. <category><![CDATA[Economic Justice]]></category>
2086. <category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>
2087. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
2088. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
2089. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
2090. <category><![CDATA[automobile industry]]></category>
2091. <category><![CDATA[hyundai]]></category>
2092. <category><![CDATA[shawn fain]]></category>
2093. <category><![CDATA[tennessee]]></category>
2094. <category><![CDATA[uaw]]></category>
2095. <category><![CDATA[volkswagen]]></category>
2096. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295608</guid>
2097.  
2098. <description><![CDATA[<p>The first-of-its-kind victory at the Chattanooga Volkswagen factory proves autoworkers in the South are beginning to see the value in unionizing their place of work.</p>
2099. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uaw-wins-big-in-tennessee/">UAW Wins Big in Tennessee</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2100. ]]></description>
2101. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
2102. <p><strong>A <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vw-volkswagen-uaw/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">decisive majority</a></strong><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vw-volkswagen-uaw/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> of the Volkswagen workers</a> employed at a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee cast their ballots in favor of joining the United Auto Workers union, <a href="https://media.vw.com/en-us/releases/1794" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">the German automaker announced</a> on April 19, 2024.</p>
2103.  
2104.  
2105.  
2106. <p>Persuading any Southern autoworkers to join a union had long been one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the UAW to organize this workforce.</p>
2107.  
2108.  
2109.  
2110. <p>To be sure, the UAW already has members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/general-motors-strike-united-auto-workers-uaw-f16005a7b20a6f1772947957854d1017" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi</a>.</p>
2111.  
2112.  
2113.  
2114. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>It was the UAW’s <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/04/20/volkswagen-uaw-vote-chattanooga-tennessee-union-vw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">third election at the same factory</a> since 2014. The prior two ended in narrow losses.</p></blockquote></figure>
2115.  
2116.  
2117.  
2118. <p>However, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-uaw-idUSKBN0TN2DE20151205/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">union had previously tried and largely failed</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/business/economy/volkswagen-chattanooga-uaw-union.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">organize workers</a> at foreign-owned companies, including Volkswagen and Nissan, in Southern states – where about <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/business/uaw-jobs-south-auto/index.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">30% of all U.S. automotive jobs are located</a>. It was the UAW’s <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/04/20/volkswagen-uaw-vote-chattanooga-tennessee-union-vw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">third election at the same factory</a> since 2014. The prior two ended in narrow losses.</p>
2119.  
2120.  
2121.  
2122. <p>The victory follows the UAW’s&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">most successful strike in a generation</a>&nbsp;against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023.</p>
2123.  
2124.  
2125.  
2126. <p>Volkswagen said it will&nbsp;<a href="https://media.vw.com/en-us/releases/1794" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">await certification of the results</a>&nbsp;by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency responsible for enforcing U.S. workers’ rights to organize. As long as neither side challenges the results within five business days, the NLRB will certify them – greenlighting the start of bargaining over a contract.</p>
2127.  
2128.  
2129.  
2130. <p>The union has <a href="https://uaw.org/the-time-is-now-mercedes-workers-in-alabama-to-vote-for-union-may-13-17/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">already scheduled another election</a> that will occur less than a month after the Volkswagen vote. More than 5,000 workers at the <a href="https://group.mercedes-benz.com/careers/about-us/locations/location-detail-page-5244.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama</a>, will have their say on whether to join the UAW in a vote that will run May 13-17, 2024.</p>
2131.  
2132.  
2133.  
2134. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>$40 million campaign</strong></h3>
2135.  
2136.  
2137.  
2138. <p>The UAW has <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-announces-40-million-commitment-to-organizing-auto-and-battery-workers-over-next-two-years/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pledged to spend US$40 million through 2026</a> to expand its ranks to include more auto and electric battery workers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/business/economy/uaw-auto-workers-union.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">including many employed in the South</a>, where the industry is <a href="https://uaw.org/we-are-the-majority-workers-at-mercedes-benzs-largest-us-plant-announce-majority-support-for-movement-to-join-uaw/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">quickly gaining ground</a>.</p>
2139.  
2140.  
2141.  
2142. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The union has <a href="https://uaw.org/the-time-is-now-mercedes-workers-in-alabama-to-vote-for-union-may-13-17/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">already scheduled another election</a> that will occur less than a month after the Volkswagen vote.</p></blockquote></figure>
2143.  
2144.  
2145.  
2146. <p>Based on my five decades of experience as a&nbsp;<a href="https://scua.uoregon.edu/agents/people/33456" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">union organizer and labor historian</a>, I anticipate that, recent momentum aside, the UAW will face resistance from the other foreign automakers that operate in the South. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/uaw-chattanooga-union-drive/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pushback is also coming from Southern politicians</a>, many of whom have expressed concern that UAW success would undermine the region’s carefully crafted approach to economic development.</p>
2147.  
2148.  
2149.  
2150. <p>But the outcome of this first election among Volkswagen’s more than 4,300 workers in Tennessee who were eligible to vote represents an impressive first step in the union’s ambitious campaign to organize foreign-owned automakers in the South and other nonunion factories across the country. With about&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/greenhousenyt/status/1781517205932265579" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">73% of the workers who voted choosing to say “yes</a>,” according to the company and additional sources, I believe that this historic victory will boost UAW organizing in the South and will likely inspire other workers seeking to unionize their workplaces.<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
2151.  
2152.  
2153.  
2154. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Lauding the ‘perfect three-legged stool’</strong></h3>
2155.  
2156.  
2157.  
2158. <p>After the region’s formerly robust&nbsp;<a href="https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813037950.003.0010" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">textile industry imploded</a>&nbsp;in the 1980s and 1990s because of an influx of cheap imports, Southern business and political leaders revived the region’s manufacturing base by successfully recruiting foreign automakers.</p>
2159.  
2160.  
2161.  
2162. <p>The strategy of those leaders reflects what the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bcatoday.org/the-united-auto-workers-labor-union-must-not-do-to-alabama/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Business Council of Alabama</a>&nbsp;has described as the “perfect three-legged stool for economic development.” It consists of “an eager and trainable workforce with a work ethic unparalleled anywhere in the nation,” accompanied by a “low-cost and business-friendly economic climate, and the lack of labor union activity and participation.”</p>
2163.  
2164.  
2165.  
2166. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
2167. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN vote to unionize with the <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">@UAW</a>. <br><br>Workers at the Mercedes plant near Tuscaloosa will hold their own union election next month.<a href="https://twitter.com/ShawnFainUAW?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">@ShawnFainUAW</a> says the UAW is “going to carry on this fight to Mercedes.”<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ALPolitics?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">#ALPolitics</a> <a href="https://t.co/TYLK7bgftg" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/TYLK7bgftg</a></p>&mdash; Alexander Willis (@ReporterWillis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReporterWillis/status/1781542866612875496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">April 20, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
2168. </div></figure>
2169.  
2170.  
2171.  
2172. <p>The prospect of a low-wage and reliable workforce has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/14/automakers-investing-in-the-south-as-evs-change-the-auto-industry.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">lured the likes of Nissan, BMW</a>, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen and Hyundai to the South in recent decades.</p>
2173.  
2174.  
2175.  
2176. <p>Although many of those companies <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volkswagen-ig-metall-agree-wage-deal-2021-04-13/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">negotiate constructively</a> with unions on their home turf, the lack of union membership and the protections that go with it have proved a draw for them in the United States.<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/589305/original/file-20240420-18-e5pxdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;rect=47%2C141%2C4446%2C2822&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
2177.  
2178.  
2179.  
2180. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Blaming unions for bad job prospects</strong></h3>
2181.  
2182.  
2183.  
2184. <p>One way automotive employers in the South have blocked unions is by&nbsp;<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59212/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">portraying them as outdated institutions</a>&nbsp;whose bloated contracts and rigid work rules destroy jobs by making domestic auto companies uncompetitive.</p>
2185.  
2186.  
2187.  
2188. <p>Automotive executives in the South argue the region has developed an alternative labor relations model that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.automotivedive.com/news/is-unionizing-foreign-automakers-next-uaw-strike/698260/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">provides management with flexibility</a>, offers wages and benefits superior to what local workers have earned previously and frees employees from any subordination to union directives.</p>
2189.  
2190.  
2191.  
2192. <p>Automakers with plants in the South also draw on another powerful resource in resisting the UAW: <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/116653/bob-corkers-uaw-intervention-chattanooga-vw-vote-speaks-volume" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">public intervention by top elected officials</a>.</p>
2193.  
2194.  
2195.  
2196. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Making dire warnings</strong></h3>
2197.  
2198.  
2199.  
2200. <p>With the UAW ramping up its organizing efforts again, Southern governors are sounding alarms once more.</p>
2201.  
2202.  
2203.  
2204. <p>On the eve of the Volkswagen election in Chattanooga,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uaw-vw-chattanooga-tennessee/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">six of these governors</a>&nbsp;issued a joint statement denouncing the UAW as a “special interest” that would “threaten our jobs and the values we live by.” They asserted that a vote for the UAW would undermine their ability to attract auto manufacturers and “stop growth in its tracks.”</p>
2205.  
2206.  
2207.  
2208. <p>The UAW counters that union membership means workers will get predictable raises,&nbsp;<a href="https://uaw.org/join/#toggle-id-14" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">better benefits and improved workplace policies</a>.</p>
2209.  
2210.  
2211.  
2212. <p>Although these arguments from anti-union politicians haven’t changed much over the years, the context certainly has.</p>
2213.  
2214.  
2215.  
2216. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>On the eve of the Volkswagen election in Chattanooga, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/uaw-vw-chattanooga-tennessee/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">six of these governors</a> issued a joint statement denouncing the UAW as a “special interest” that would “threaten our jobs and the values we live by.”</p></blockquote></figure>
2217.  
2218.  
2219.  
2220. <p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/12/1211602392/uaw-auto-strike-deals-ratified-big-three-shawn-fain" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">UAW’s big wins on pay and benefits</a>&nbsp;resulting from its 2023 strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have increased its clout and credibility.</p>
2221.  
2222.  
2223.  
2224. <p>Many automakers with a U.S. workforce not covered by the UAW – including Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai and other foreign transplants – responded by raising pay at their Southern plants. The union justifiably describes those raises as a “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/cars/uaw-labor-toyota-honda-hyundai/index.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">UAW bump</a>.”</p>
2225.  
2226.  
2227.  
2228. <p>The UAW is citing these pay hikes in its outreach to&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/next-on-the-united-auto-workers-to-do-list-adding-more-members-who-currently-work-at-nonunion-factories-to-its-ranks-217064" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">workers at Tesla</a>&nbsp;and other nonunion companies.</p>
2229.  
2230.  
2231.  
2232. <p>“Nonunion autoworkers are being left behind,”&nbsp;<a href="https://uaw.org/join/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">the UAW’s recruiting website</a>&nbsp;warns. “Are you ready to stand up and win your fair share?”</p>
2233.  
2234.  
2235.  
2236. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
2237. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Volkswagen workers in TN have voted for representation. 73% to 27% according to this release from VW. <br><br>This marks a significant victory for the <a href="https://twitter.com/UAW?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">@UAW</a> as it continues to make inroads with foreign automakers in the US South. <a href="https://t.co/DnvXJw7Sgf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/DnvXJw7Sgf</a></p>&mdash; Russ McNamara (@McNamaraWDET) <a href="https://twitter.com/McNamaraWDET/status/1781514832790909128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">April 20, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
2238. </div></figure>
2239.  
2240.  
2241.  
2242. <p>The pitch continues: “It’s time for nonunion autoworkers to join the UAW and win economic justice at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Rivian, Lucid, Volvo and beyond.”</p>
2243.  
2244.  
2245.  
2246. <p>Some Southern autoworkers, meanwhile, have been&nbsp;<a href="https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMPROVING-WORK-LIFE-BALANCE-AT-VOLKSWAGEN.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">expressing concerns over scheduling</a>, safety, two-tier wage systems and workloads that they believe a union could help resolve.</p>
2247.  
2248.  
2249.  
2250. <p>It’s also clear they’ve been emboldened by the gains they have seen UAW members make.<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/589302/original/file-20240420-16-z4zmki.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;rect=22%2C53%2C2928%2C1868&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
2251.  
2252.  
2253.  
2254. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Revving up</strong></h3>
2255.  
2256.  
2257.  
2258. <p>The UAW’s campaign is just starting to rev up. And the timing is ideal.</p>
2259.  
2260.  
2261.  
2262. <p>A <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-announcing-new-framework-for-union-representation" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">2023 National Labor Relations Board ruling</a> provides unions with additional leverage in this process. If management refuses to grant the union’s request for recognition, the employer would then be required to seek an NLRB representation election.</p>
2263.  
2264.  
2265.  
2266. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The UAW says it’s waging <a href="https://uaw.org/the-time-is-now-mercedes-workers-in-alabama-to-vote-for-union-may-13-17/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">organizing campaigns at more than two dozen other nonunion plants</a>.</p></blockquote></figure>
2267.  
2268.  
2269.  
2270. <p>To win, unions normally need a majority of those voting. But in accordance with the new ruling, if management is found to have interfered with workers’ rights during the election process, it could then be&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-announcing-new-framework-for-union-representation" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">required to bargain with the union</a>.</p>
2271.  
2272.  
2273.  
2274. <p>The UAW says it’s waging&nbsp;<a href="https://uaw.org/the-time-is-now-mercedes-workers-in-alabama-to-vote-for-union-may-13-17/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">organizing campaigns at more than two dozen other nonunion plants</a>, including factories run by Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama, and Toyota in Troy, Missouri.</p>
2275.  
2276.  
2277.  
2278. <p>I believe that the stakes are high for all workers, not just those in the auto industry.</p>
2279.  
2280.  
2281.  
2282. <p>As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/05/unions-south-labor-organizing-ussw-seiu-00114085" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">D. Taylor, the president of Unite Here</a>, a union that represents workers in a wide range of occupations, recently observed: “If you change the South, you change America.”</p>
2283.  
2284.  
2285.  
2286. <p class="has-small-font-size"><em>This is an updated version of an&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/uaws-southern-strategy-union-revs-up-drive-to-get-workers-employed-by-foreign-automakers-to-join-its-ranks-223162" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">article published on March 8, 2024</a>.</em></p>
2287. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uaw-wins-big-in-tennessee/">UAW Wins Big in Tennessee</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2288. ]]></content:encoded>
2290. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uaw-wins-big-in-tennessee/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
2291. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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2296. </item>
2297. <item>
2298. <title>The Attack on Gaza Protests Threatens Free Expression for All</title>
2299. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-mccarthyist-attack-on-gaza-protests-threatens-free-expression-for-all/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-mccarthyist-attack-on-gaza-protests-threatens-free-expression-for-all</link>
2300. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-mccarthyist-attack-on-gaza-protests-threatens-free-expression-for-all/#respond</comments>
2302. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Paul /  FAIR ]]></dc:creator>
2303. <pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:13:20 +0000</pubDate>
2304. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
2305. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
2306. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
2307. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
2308. <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
2309. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
2310. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
2311. <category><![CDATA[columbia university]]></category>
2312. <category><![CDATA[gaza]]></category>
2313. <category><![CDATA[mccarthyism]]></category>
2314. <category><![CDATA[nyu]]></category>
2315. <category><![CDATA[usc]]></category>
2316. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295593</guid>
2317.  
2318. <description><![CDATA[<p>If state actors and media pundits can push universities to silence students and faculty, what’s next?</p>
2319. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-mccarthyist-attack-on-gaza-protests-threatens-free-expression-for-all/">The Attack on Gaza Protests Threatens Free Expression for All</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2320. ]]></description>
2321. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
2322. <p><strong>With the encouragement of the state</strong>, universities from coast to coast are taking draconian steps to silence debate about US-backed violence in the Middle East.</p>
2323.  
2324.  
2325.  
2326. <p>The Columbia University community looked on in shock as cops in riot gear arrested at least 100 pro-Palestine protesters who had set up an encampment in the center of campus (New York Post, <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/18/us-news/nypd-cops-enter-columbia-after-university-warns-anti-israel-protesters-to-clear-out/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>). The university’s president, Nemat Shafik, had just the day before testified before a Republican-dominated congressional committee ostensibly concerned with campus “antisemitism”—a label that has come to be <a href="https://fair.org/home/nyt-amplifies-outrage-over-imaginary-calls-for-genocide/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">misapplied</a> to any criticism of Israel, though the critics so smeared are often themselves Jewish.</p>
2327.  
2328.  
2329.  
2330. <p>A sense of delight has filled the city’s opinion pages. The New York Post editorial board (<a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/18/opinion/columbia-and-googles-crackdown-on-anti-israel-protesters-is-a-win-for-common-sense/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>)  hailed both the clampdown on protests and Congress’s push to ensure that such drastic action against free speech was taken: “We’re glad to see Shafik stand up…. Congress deserves some credit for putting educrats’ feet to the fire on this issue.” The paper added, “Academia has been handling anti-Israel demonstrations with kid gloves.” In other words, universities have been allowing too many people to think and speak critically about an important issue of the day.</p>
2331.  
2332.  
2333.  
2334. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Conservative pundits have decided that campus safe spaces where speech is banned to protect the feelings of listeners are good, depending on the issue.</p></blockquote></figure>
2335.  
2336.  
2337.  
2338. <p>In “At Columbia, the Grown-Ups in the Room Take a Stand,” New York Times columnist <a href="https://fair.org/home/pamela-pauls-gender-agenda/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Pamela Paul</a> (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/16/opinion/thepoint#columbia-protests-gaza" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>) hailed the eviction, saying of the encampment that for the “passer-by, the fury and self-righteous sentiment on display was chilling,” and that for supporters of Israel, “it must be unimaginably painful.” In other words, conservative pundits have decided that campus safe spaces where speech is banned to protect the feelings of listeners are good, depending on the issue. Would Paul (no relation!) favor bans on pro-Taiwan or pro-Armenia demonstrations because they could offend Chinese and Turkish students?</p>
2339.  
2340.  
2341.  
2342. <p>And for <a href="https://fair.org/home/time-peddles-old-stereotypes-with-op-ed-on-iranian-carpet-merchants/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Michael Oren</a>, a prominent Israeli politico, Columbia students hadn’t suffered enough. He said of Columbia in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/columbia-fails-to-protect-its-jewish-community-encampment-house-israel-f4a139a2?mod=opinion_lead_pos5" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/19/24</a>):</p>
2343.  
2344.  
2345.  
2346. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
2347. <p>Missing was an admission of the university’s failure to enforce the measures it had enacted to protect its Jewish community. [Shafik] didn’t address how, under the banner of free speech, Columbia became inhospitable to Jews. She didn’t acknowledge how incendiary demonstrations such as the encampment were the product of the university’s inaction.</p>
2348. </blockquote>
2349.  
2350.  
2351.  
2352. <p>Shafik had assured her congressional interrogators that Columbia had already suspended 15 students for speaking out for Palestinian human rights, suspended two student groups—Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, <a href="https://www.jta.org/2023/11/10/ny/columbia-university-suspends-jewish-voice-for-peace-and-students-for-justice-in-palestine" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">11/10/23</a>)—and had even terminated an instructor (New York Times, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/17/nyregion/columbia-university-president-nemat-shafik-hearing.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/17/24</a>).</p>
2353.  
2354.  
2355.  
2356. <p>The hearing was bizarre, to say the least; a Georgia Republican asked the president if she wanted her campus to be “cursed by God” (New York Times, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/opinion/columbia-antisemitism-hearing.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>). (“Definitely not,” was her response.)</p>
2357.  
2358.  
2359.  
2360. <p>The former World Bank economist had clearly been shaken after seeing how congressional McCarthyism ousted two other female Ivy League presidents (FAIR.org, <a href="https://fair.org/home/nyt-amplifies-outrage-over-imaginary-calls-for-genocide/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">12/12/23</a>; Al Jazeera, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/2/harvard-president-resigns-amid-controversy-over-anti-semitisim-hearing" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">1/2/24</a>).</p>
2361.  
2362.  
2363.  
2364. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>‘Protected from having to hear’</strong></h3>
2365.  
2366.  
2367.  
2368. <p>“What happened at those hearings yesterday should be of grave concern to everybody, regardless of their feelings on Palestine, regardless of their politics,” Barnard College women’s studies professor Rebecca Jordan-Young told Democracy Now! (<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/18/columbia_university_israel_palestine#:~:text=AMY%20GOODMAN%3A%20In%20the%20run,hearings%20a%2C%20quote%2C%20%E2%80%9Cnew" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>). “What happened yesterday was a demonstration of the growing and intensifying attack on liberal education writ large.”</p>
2369.  
2370.  
2371.  
2372. <p>Her colleague, historian Nara Milanich, said in the same interview:</p>
2373.  
2374.  
2375.  
2376. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
2377. <p>This is not about antisemitism so much as attacking areas of inquiry and teaching, whether it’s about voting rights or vaccine safety or climate change — right?—arenas of inquiry that are uncomfortable or inconvenient or controversial for certain groups. And so, this is essentially what we’re seeing, antisemitism being weaponized in a broad attack on the university.</p>
2378. </blockquote>
2379.  
2380.  
2381.  
2382. <p>Jewish faculty at Columbia spoke out against the callous misuse of antisemitism to silence students, but those in power aren’t listening (Columbia Spectator, <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2024/04/10/jewish-faculty-reject-the-weaponization-of-antisemitism/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/10/24</a>).</p>
2383.  
2384.  
2385.  
2386. <p>Shafik justified authorizing the mass arrests, which many said <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tom.sugrue/posts/pfbid0DSEnyLxzGrjoVdpW7xrowV7g6zThetCQ1Bhfd3pCLdpYVWFEPtjKj2Dc1x8iGYXFl" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">hadn’t been seen on campus</a> since the anti-Vietnam War protests of 1968. “The individuals who established the encampment violated a long list of rules and policies,” she said (BBC, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68851168" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>).  “Through direct conversations and in writing, the university provided multiple notices of these violations.”</p>
2387.  
2388.  
2389.  
2390. <p>One policy suggested by the university’s “antisemitism task force,” according to a university trustee who also testified (New York Times, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/opinion/columbia-antisemitism-hearing.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>): “If you are going to chant, it should only be in a certain place, so that people who don’t want to hear it are protected from having to hear it.”</p>
2391.  
2392.  
2393.  
2394. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Cross-country rollback</strong></h3>
2395.  
2396.  
2397.  
2398. <p>Meanwhile, the University of Southern California canceled the planned graduation speech by valedictorian Asna Tabassum—a Muslim woman who had spoken out for Palestine (Reuters, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/university-southern-california-cancels-muslim-valedictorians-speech-citing-2024-04-16/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/18/24</a>). The university cited unnamed “security risks”;  The Hill (<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4596939-usc-pro-palestinian-valedictorian-speech/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/16/24</a>) noted that “she had links to pro-Palestinian sites on her social media.”  Andrew T. Guzman, the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, said in a statement that cancelation was “consistent with the fundamental legal obligation—including the expectations of federal regulators—that universities act to protect students and keep our campus community safe” (USC Annenberg Media, <a href="https://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2024/04/15/provost-announces-valedictorian-wont-speak-at-graduation-in-may/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4/15/24</a>).</p>
2399.  
2400.  
2401.  
2402. <p>This is happening as academic freedom is being rolled back across the country. Republicans in Indiana recently passed a law to allow a politically appointed board to deny or even revoke university professors’ tenure if the board feels their classes lack “intellectual diversity”—at the same time that it threatens them if they seem “likely” to “subject students to political or ideological views and opinions” deemed unrelated to their courses (Inside Higher Ed, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/academic-freedom/2024/02/21/bill-threatens-profs-who-dont-give-intellectual" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">2/21/24</a>).</p>
2403.  
2404.  
2405.  
2406. <p><a href="https://clas.iusb.edu/english/faculty/balthaser.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Benjamin Balthaser</a>, associate professor of English at Indiana University South Bend, told FAIR in regard to the congressional hearing:</p>
2407.  
2408.  
2409.  
2410. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
2411. <p>There is no other definition of bigotry or racism that equates criticism of a state, even withering, hostile criticism, with an entire ethnic or religious group, especially a state engaging in ongoing, documented war crimes and crimes against humanity. Added to this absurdity is the fact that many of the accused are not only Jewish, but have strong ties to their Jewish communities. To make such an equation assumes a collective or group homogeneity which is itself a form of essentialism, even racism itself: People are not reducible to the crimes of their state, let alone a state thousands of miles away to which most Jews are not citizens.</p>
2412. </blockquote>
2413.  
2414.  
2415.  
2416. <p>Of course, witch hunts against leftists in US society are often motivated by antisemitism. Balthaser again:</p>
2417.  
2418.  
2419.  
2420. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
2421. <p>The far right has long deployed antisemitism as a weapon of censorship and repression, associating Jewishness with Communism and subversion during the First and Second Red Scares.&nbsp; Not only did earlier forms of McCarthyism overwhelmingly target Jews (Jews were two-thirds of the “defendants” called before HUAC in 1952, despite being less than 2% of the US population), it did so while cynically pretending to protect Jews from Communism.&nbsp; Something very similar is occurring now: Mobilizing a racist trope of Jewish adherence to Israel, far-right politicians are using accusations of antisemitism to both silence criticism of Israel and, in doing so, promote their antisemitic ideas of Jewishness in the world.</p>
2422. </blockquote>
2423.  
2424.  
2425.  
2426. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Silencing for ‘free speech’</strong></h3>
2427.  
2428.  
2429.  
2430. <p>These universities are not simply clamping down on free speech because the administrators dislike this particular speech, or out of fear that pro-Palestine demonstrations or vocal faculty members could scare donors from writing big checks. This is a result of state actors—congressional Republicans, in particular—who are using their committee power and sycophants in the media to demand more firings, more suspensions, more censorship.</p>
2431.  
2432.  
2433.  
2434. <p>I have written for years (FAIR.org, <a href="https://fair.org/home/panic-over-cancel-culture-is-another-example-of-right-wing-projection/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">10/23/20</a>, <a href="https://fair.org/home/medias-anti-woke-mania-moves-social-justice-to-the-fringe/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">11/17/21</a>, <a href="https://fair.org/home/new-york-times-fear-of-ordinary-people-talking-back/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">3/25/22</a>), as have many others, that Republican complaints about “cancel culture” on campus suppressing free speech are exaggerated. One of the biggest hypocrisies is that so-called free-speech conservatives claim that campus activists are silencing conservatives, but have little to say about blatant censorship and political firings when it comes to Palestine.</p>
2435.  
2436.  
2437.  
2438. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>When criticism of the right is deemed to be the major threat to free speech, it’s a short step to enlisting the state to “protect” free speech by silencing the critics.</p></blockquote></figure>
2439.  
2440.  
2441.  
2442. <p>This isn’t a mere moral inconsistency. This is the anti-woke agenda at work: When criticism of the right is deemed to be the major threat to free speech, it’s a short step to enlisting the state to “protect” free speech by silencing the critics—in this case, dissenters against US support for Israeli militarism.</p>
2443.  
2444.  
2445.  
2446. <p>But this isn’t just about Palestine; crackdowns against pro-Palestine protests are part of a broader war against discourse and thought. The right has already paved the way for assaults on educational freedom with bans aimed at&nbsp;<a href="https://fair.org/slider/the-far-rights-manufactured-meaning-of-critical-race-theory/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Critical Race Theory</a>&nbsp;adopted in&nbsp;<a href="https://crtforward.law.ucla.edu/map/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">29 states</a>.</p>
2447.  
2448.  
2449.  
2450. <p>If the state can now stifle and punish speech against the murder of civilians in Gaza, what’s next? With another congressional committee investigating so-called infiltration by China’s Communist Party, will Chinese political scholars be targeted next (Reuters, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/first-us-house-china-select-committee-focus-human-rights-2023-02-28/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">2/28/24</a>)? With state laws against environmental protests proliferating (Sierra, <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2023-3-fall/notes-here-there/states-are-criminalizing-environmental-protest" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">9/17/23</a>), will there be a new McCarthyism against climate scientists? (Author Will Potter raised the alarm about a “green scare” more than a decade ago—People’s World, <a href="https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/is-green-the-new-red/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">9/26/11</a>; CounterSpin, <a href="https://fair.org/counterspin/maegan-ortiz-on-immigration-reform-will-potter-on-ag-gag-laws/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">2/1/13</a>.)</p>
2451.  
2452.  
2453.  
2454. <p>Universities and the press are supposed to be places where we can freely discuss the issues of the day, even if that means having to hear opinions that might be hard for some to digest. Without those arenas for free thought, our First Amendment rights mean very little. If anyone who claims to be a free speech absolutist isn’t citing a government-led war against free speech and assembly on campuses as their No. 1 concern in the United States right now, they’re a fraud.</p>
2455. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-mccarthyist-attack-on-gaza-protests-threatens-free-expression-for-all/">The Attack on Gaza Protests Threatens Free Expression for All</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2456. ]]></content:encoded>
2458. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-mccarthyist-attack-on-gaza-protests-threatens-free-expression-for-all/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
2459. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
2462. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AP24109742968843-878x585.jpg" length="678784" type="image/jpeg" />
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2464. </item>
2465. <item>
2466. <title>U.S. Poised to Sanction Israeli Military Unit Accused of Human Rights Abuses</title>
2467. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/netanyahu-defends-israeli-military-unit-accused-of-human-rights-abuses/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=netanyahu-defends-israeli-military-unit-accused-of-human-rights-abuses</link>
2468. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/netanyahu-defends-israeli-military-unit-accused-of-human-rights-abuses/#respond</comments>
2470. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Brett Murphy /  ProPublica ]]></dc:creator>
2471. <pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:03:41 +0000</pubDate>
2472. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
2473. <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
2474. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
2475. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
2476. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
2477. <category><![CDATA[Wounds of War]]></category>
2478. <category><![CDATA[benjamin netanyahu]]></category>
2479. <category><![CDATA[human rights abuses]]></category>
2480. <category><![CDATA[war crimes]]></category>
2481. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295594</guid>
2482.  
2483. <description><![CDATA[<p>Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to bar U.S. aid to a controversial unit, despite protests from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.</p>
2484. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/netanyahu-defends-israeli-military-unit-accused-of-human-rights-abuses/">U.S. Poised to Sanction Israeli Military Unit Accused of Human Rights Abuses</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2485. ]]></description>
2486. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
2487. <p class="has-small-font-size">This story was originally published by <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/netanyahu-resists-blinken-plan-sanction-against-israeli-military-unit" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">ProPublica</a>.</p>
2488.  
2489.  
2490.  
2491. <p><strong>Israel’s leaders</strong> are fiercely pushing back against U.S. plans to withhold American assistance from an Israeli unit accused of human rights abuses.</p>
2492.  
2493.  
2494.  
2495. <p><a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/04/20/us-israel-sanctions-idf-west-bank" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Axios</a> and Israeli news outlets reported over the weekend that Secretary of State Antony Blinken intends to ban U.S. support to Israel’s Netzah Yehuda unit, the country’s all-male, ultra-Orthodox battalion at the center of several controversies in the West Bank that go back years. Netzah Yehuda has been <a href="https://www.972mag.com/netzah-yehuda-israeli-army-abuse/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">repeatedly accused of</a> shooting and assaulting civilians, including in a 2022 case in which several commanders handcuffed, gagged and left for dead an elderly Palestinian-American man in Israel’s West Bank.</p>
2496.  
2497.  
2498.  
2499. <p>“Sanctions must not be imposed on the Israel Defense Forces!” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The intention to impose a sanction on a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low.” Blinken told reporters traveling with him in Europe on Saturday that he’ll make an official announcement about his decision in the coming days.</p>
2500.  
2501.  
2502.  
2503. <p>The public dispute between Israel and the United States follows a ProPublica article Wednesday that <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/israel-gaza-blinken-leahy-sanctions-human-rights-violations" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">revealed Blinken has failed to act for months</a> after a special State Department panel recommended that he disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. assistance after reviewing allegations that they had committed flagrant violations, including extrajudicial killings and rape.</p>
2504.  
2505.  
2506.  
2507. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Blinken told reporters traveling with him in Europe on Saturday that he’ll make an official announcement about his decision in the coming days.</p></blockquote></figure>
2508.  
2509.  
2510.  
2511. <p>Until now, the State Department has never disqualified an Israeli military unit from receiving aid, which would make Blinken’s decision a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy. “This is a very important law,” he told reporters over the weekend, “and it’s one that we apply across the board.”</p>
2512.  
2513.  
2514.  
2515. <p>Neither Blinken nor department spokespersons have addressed the reason for the delay since the forum’s first recommendation that he take action, which was sent to Blinken in December, according to someone familiar with the memo. “This process is one that demands a careful and full review,” a State Department spokesperson told ProPublica last week.</p>
2516.  
2517.  
2518.  
2519. <p>Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and war cabinet member Benny Gantz are pressing the U.S. to reverse course, as well.&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1782085979022713133" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Gantz reportedly spoke with Blinken</a>&nbsp;personally on Sunday and asked him to reconsider.</p>
2520.  
2521.  
2522.  
2523. <p>On Saturday, the House voted 366-58 to approve an additional $26 billion in aid to Israel after months of delay. The Senate will likely review the legislation, a package that includes aid to Ukraine as well, early next week before sending it to President Joe Biden for his signature.</p>
2524.  
2525.  
2526.  
2527. <p>After the disclosure last week that Blinken had been urged by his own agency to impose penalties,&nbsp;<a href="https://dawnmena.org/secretary-of-state-blinken-sanction-abusive-israeli-military-units-under-leahy-law/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">human rights</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-calls-on-sec-blinken-to-act-on-state-dept-recommendation-to-suspend-weapons-transfers-to-israel-over-human-rights-violations/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Arab groups</a>&nbsp;pushed for results. On Thursday,&nbsp;<a href="https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/V000128-chris-van-hollen" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.</a>, told ProPublica he was also seeking answers from the State Department. “This report that the administration is sitting on its hands in the face of known violations is deeply troubling and, if true, would undermine the credibility of America’s commitment to applying our human rights laws in a uniform and unbiased manner,” Van Hollen said in a statement.</p>
2528.  
2529.  
2530.  
2531. <p>The State Department panel that originally made the recommendations is known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum. The panel, made up of Middle East and human rights experts, is named for former Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chief author of 1997 laws that require the U.S. to cut off American-financed arms and training to any foreign military or law enforcement units that are credibly accused of flagrant human rights violations. Unlike individual sanctions that are up to the president’s discretion, implementing the Leahy Laws is supposed to be a requirement.</p>
2532.  
2533.  
2534.  
2535. <p>A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the status of the other cases involving possible wrongdoing by Israeli units or confirm the substance of Blinken’s upcoming announcement. The Israeli outlet <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-20/ty-article/.premium/u-s-set-to-sanction-ultra-orthodox-israeli-army-battalion-based-in-the-west-bank/0000018e-fd0b-d140-a3ee-fddf9a1c0000" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Haaretz</a> also reported on Saturday that Netzah Yehuda is the unit he intends to ban from assistance.</p>
2536.  
2537.  
2538.  
2539. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Neither Blinken nor department spokespersons have addressed the reason for the delay since the forum’s first recommendation that he take action, which was sent to Blinken in December.</p></blockquote></figure>
2540.  
2541.  
2542.  
2543. <p>The Israeli military said it has not yet been informed of Blinken’s decision about Netzah Yehuda, which is currently operating in Gaza amid the government’s campaign to eradicate Hamas following the terrorist attacks on Oct. 7. “The IDF is not aware of the issue,” a military spokesperson said, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-pm-netanyahu-says-he-will-fight-any-sanctions-army-battalions-2024-04-21/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">according to Reuters</a>. “If a decision is made on the matter it will be reviewed.” The Israeli government has repeatedly argued that it has its own independent justice system in place to hold accountable those responsible for human rights abuses.</p>
2544.  
2545.  
2546.  
2547. <p>“This is a welcome first step, albeit very, very late,” said Charles Blaha, the former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights and a former participant in the Israeli vetting forum. “There are dozens more Israeli security force units that have committed gross violations of human rights and should not be receiving US security assistance.”</p>
2548.  
2549.  
2550.  
2551. <p>It’s not clear if Netzah Yehudah is currently receiving security assistance from the U.S., other Middle East experts noted. Some said Blinken’s determination, while important symbolically, should have been made previously and without having to clear so many of the bureaucratic hurdles that do not apply to other countries. Critics have long assailed what they view as a double standard for Israel, which receives billions more in U.S. military financing than any other country.</p>
2552.  
2553.  
2554.  
2555. <p>“We are sending the IDF weapons on a daily basis for what are clear [human rights violations] in Gaza,” said Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and a member of the vetting forum. “It’s the impression of action without any actual impact.”</p>
2556.  
2557.  
2558.  
2559. <p class="has-small-font-size">Do you have any information about American assistance to countries accused of human rights violations? Contact Brett Murphy at <a href="mailto:brett.murphy@propublica.org" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">brett.murphy@propublica.org</a> or by Signal at 508-523-5195.</p>
2560. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/netanyahu-defends-israeli-military-unit-accused-of-human-rights-abuses/">U.S. Poised to Sanction Israeli Military Unit Accused of Human Rights Abuses</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2561. ]]></content:encoded>
2563. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/netanyahu-defends-israeli-military-unit-accused-of-human-rights-abuses/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
2564. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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2569. </item>
2570. <item>
2571. <title>Age Before Duty</title>
2572. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/age-before-duty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=age-before-duty</link>
2573. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/age-before-duty/#respond</comments>
2575. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Darrin M. McMahon /  History News Network]]></dc:creator>
2576. <pubDate>Sat, 20 Apr 2024 17:11:30 +0000</pubDate>
2577. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
2578. <category><![CDATA[Belief & Religion]]></category>
2579. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
2580. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
2581. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
2582. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
2583. <category><![CDATA[age limits]]></category>
2584. <category><![CDATA[declaration of independence]]></category>
2585. <category><![CDATA[founding fathers]]></category>
2586. <category><![CDATA[joe biden]]></category>
2587. <category><![CDATA[public service]]></category>
2588. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295557</guid>
2589.  
2590. <description><![CDATA[<p>How did the founders think about age and its relationship to rights and power?</p>
2591. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/age-before-duty/">Age Before Duty</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2592. ]]></description>
2593. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
2594. <p><strong>For all its supposed self-evidence</strong>, Thomas Jefferson’s assertion in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” has beguiled and befuddled since the moment it was penned. “Are we not men?,” Black Americans and the Indigenous immediately asked. What about women? Those questions have fueled contestation to the present day. But less remarked is an issue the founders themselves debated in their revolutionary age, and which has come once again to preoccupy our own. What role does age itself play in determining the status of equals? </p>
2595.  
2596.  
2597.  
2598. <p>If you look up the word “equal” in early-modern dictionaries, you’ll invariably find a definition like that that of Noah Webster’s first <a href="https://archive.org/details/compendiousdictionaryoftheenglishlanguage1806/page/n128/mode/1up?q=equal" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">American dictionary of 1806</a>: equal (<em>n.</em>) “one who is of the same rank and age.” Webster was 48 at the time his dictionary appeared in print, and he was old enough to know that although equality was assuming new meanings bearing on the possession of individual rights, it was still freighted with older associations. Equals had been peers for centuries. It was a proposition that made perfect sense in hierarchical societies based on clearly established orders in which age and rank commanded due deference. As the 42-year-old philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau acknowledged in his celebrated 1754 work <em>Discourse on the Origin of Inequality</em>, “The elders of the Hebrews, the <em>gerontes</em> of Sparta, the senate of Rome, and even the etymology of the work <em>seigneur </em>[from the Latin <em>senior </em>= older, elder] show how much age was respected in former times.” The young may have bridled on occasion at the prerogatives of birth, but they still granted senior citizens and subjects preferment.</p>
2599.  
2600.  
2601.  
2602. <p>Yet Rousseau inhabited an enlightened age, one that sought to make more space for the young. Like the English philosopher John Locke, whose work he cited and admired, Rousseau argued against any who would base authority, especially political authority, solely on the number of days one spent on earth. Children were apprentice equals, and the rights of parents were provisional. As soon as offspring reached an age at which they could know natural and civil law — which in keeping with British practice, Locke set at 21 — they were free to live their lives for themselves. All men were created equal, just not at the same time.</p>
2603.  
2604.  
2605.  
2606. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Even the most committed egalitarians of the era granted age its privilege.</p></blockquote></figure>
2607.  
2608.  
2609.  
2610. <p>Age’s privileges were hard to abandon. Locke, who enjoyed a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic as a staunch defender of the inalienable rights of children, made clear that he did not intend to completely level old and young. In his <em>Second Treatise on Government</em>, a work of great importance to the founders that he probably began in his 40s but did not publish until he was nearly 60, Locke observed, “Though I have said … that all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality.” Age, along with virtue, he wrote, “may give men a just precedency.”</p>
2611.  
2612.  
2613.  
2614. <p>When it came time to draft a constitution of their own, the American Founders eventually subscribed to a similar logic. At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, diversity among the cohort of predominately wealthy white men was restricted largely to geography and opinion. Yet age was also a distinguishing characteristic. The oldest delegate, Benjamin Franklin, was 81 in 1787, and the youngest, Jonathan Drayton of New Jersey, was 26. The average age at the convention was 42, and some of the most influential representatives at the gathering — Alexander Hamilton (30 or 32, his birthdate is uncertain), Edmund Randolph (34), Gouverneur Morris (35), and James Madison (36) — were in their thirties. </p>
2615.  
2616.  
2617.  
2618. <p>Still, the convention followed British precedent in setting the minimum voting age at 21, when young men were said to assume their rational “manhood.” Those attending established minimum ages for elected representatives, as well. A few radicals like 45-year-old James Wilson argued against age requirements for membership in Congress on the grounds that these would “damp the power of genius and laudable ambition.” There was “no more reason for incapacitating youth than age,” Wilson said, “where the requisite qualifications were found.” But even Wilson bowed to what George Mason, then 62, described as “the privilege of age,” and the upstart Hamilton allowed was the “respect” due to “superior abilities, age, and experience.” When Benjamin Franklin, the doyen of the Constitutional Convention, felt too frail to deliver his <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/benjamin-franklin-closing-speech-at-the-constitutional-convention" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">closing statement</a>, Wilson read it for him, “on account,” he said, “of his age.” </p>
2619.  
2620.  
2621.  
2622. <p>Franklin was universally admired for his authority and experience. His advanced age generated few complaints from his colleagues at the convention. They were wary, though, of its inverse. Mason <a href="https://archive.org/details/recordsoffederal01unit/page/374/mode/2up?q=age" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">warned</a> of the “deficiency of young politicians.” In pressing for a minimum threshold for membership in the House of Representatives at “the age of 25 years at least,” he recalled that his own opinions at age 21, “were too crude and erroneous to merit an influence on public measures.” Better that representatives ripen a bit as they had in the Continental Congresses, which had proved “a good school for our young men.” </p>
2623.  
2624.  
2625.  
2626. <p>For the Senate, conceived on the Roman model as an august body of elders, the delegates voted a threshold of “thirty years at least.” That was precisely the age of Joe Biden when he first entered that venerable body in 1972. Biden said at the time that potential donors <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oysFCNPg0DA&amp;t=18s" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">told him</a>, “Come back when you’re 40, son.” He accused his sexagenarian Republican opponent, Cale Boggs, of being too old. The incumbent had lost, Biden <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/24/politics/joe-biden-age-criticism-kfile/index.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">claimed</a>, the “twinkle in his eye.” </p>
2627.  
2628.  
2629.  
2630. <p>In the 18th century, when average life expectancy for those who managed to reach 20 was <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2885717/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">less than 50</a>, 30 was older than it seems today. Members of the Senate were expected to be less green than their congressional colleagues in the House, and the commander-in-chief was expected to be more seasoned still. The delegates set the minimum age for the presidency at the grand old age of 35. George Washington was 57 when he took up office, and 64 when finished his second term. The 32-year-old Tench Coxe, a former representative to the Continental Congress who was on hand in Philadelphia to observe the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention, argued that the age threshold for the presidency would serve as a prophylactic. It ensured that the president “cannot be an idiot, probably not a knave or a tyrant, for those whom nature makes so, discover it before the age of thirty-five, until which period he cannot be elected.”</p>
2631.  
2632.  
2633.  
2634. <p>Although history has not proved kind to Coxe’s judgment, his underlying assumption that age was a distinguishing characteristic that should set our leaders apart continued to be widely shared. Even the most committed egalitarians of the era granted age its privilege. Native Americans, African Americans, and women duly contested the boundaries of political equality policed by white men. But in the aftermath of the American Revolution, they rarely complained about the privilege of age. Whereas the 60-year-old philosopher Immanuel Kant had argued famously in 1784 that “enlightenment” was about man’s emergence from “immaturity” and immaturity was the “ability to think without another’s guidance,” women and people of color demanded to be treated as adults.  </p>
2635.  
2636.  
2637.  
2638. <p>Are we not all equal?” asked the men whom Marx considered the world’s first communists — 36-year-old Gracchus Babeuf and his fellow plotters in the French Revolutionary “Conspiracy of the Equals.” Their <a href="https://www.marxists.org/history/france/revolution/conspiracy-equals/1796/manifesto.htm" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">manifesto</a> of 1796 demanded “real equality” for all in terms of both opportunities and outcomes: “Yet “all” admitted of exceptions. “Let there no longer be any difference between people other than that of age and sex,” they made clear. Such were the limits of their understanding. </p>
2639.  
2640.  
2641.  
2642. <p>In the 19th century, the utopian socialist Robert Owen went further, pushing for greater rights for women. The only inequality that would be left in the glorious future, he observed at the age of 71 in his 1842 work, <em>Book of the New Moral World</em>, would be the only legitimate forms of “inequality and condition,” namely the “natural inequality of different ageand experience.” Less visionary souls than Owen found it harder to relinquish other allegedly “natural inequalities,” such as those of sex and race. They added to the insult by treating women and people of color at home and in their empires as “child-like,” and so not befitting the equal privileges of their elders. As the 35-year-old American feminist Margaret Fuller protested in her 1845 classic <em>Woman in the Nineteenth Century</em>, “There is no woman, only an overgrown child.” Yet as the historian Corinne T. Field has shown in her book <em>The Struggle for Equal Adulthood: Gender, Race, Age, and the Fight for Citizenship in Antebellum America</em>, women fought back. They pressed, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, for the “right to grow old” on equal terms with men, and assailed, like Sojourner Truth, patriarchal double standards that lauded the sagacity of old men but condemned the folly of “old maids.”</p>
2643.  
2644.  
2645.  
2646. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>As <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/18/opinion/gabriel-attal-young-leaders/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">commentators</a> point out, the American political class is exceptionally old, its gerontocracy “a contrast with the rest of the world.”</p></blockquote></figure>
2647.  
2648.  
2649.  
2650. <p>Even as many since the 19th century have gradually, if imperfectly, abandoned the “just precedency” of race and sex, they have clung to the privilege of age. It was only in the twentieth century in the United States, in fact, that a significant movement to extend voting rights to the young gained traction. During the large-scale mobilization of World War II, the fact that young men could die for their country at 18, without ever having cast a vote, generated an incipient movement to lower the minimum voting age for federal elections. Some states did so at the state and local level, with Georgia leading the way in 1943, if only effectively for white voters. But it was amidst the powerful youth movement of the 1960s and the momentum of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the argument <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/voting-age-26th-amendment" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">“old enough to fight, old enough to vote</a>” reached a tipping point during the Vietnam War, leading to the passage in 1971 of the 26th Amendment. It ensured that “The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.”</p>
2651.  
2652.  
2653.  
2654. <p>Since that time, <a href="https://www.youthrights.org/issues/voting-age/history-of-the-movement/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">proposals have surfaced periodically</a>, without gaining much traction, to level the voting age even farther, with one Minnesota state representative, Phyllis Kahn, seeking provocatively in 1989 to reduce it to twelve. But on the whole, citizens seem content with the minimum ages now on the books, and no one has sought seriously to alter the requirements for house, senate, or the presidency. </p>
2655.  
2656.  
2657.  
2658. <p>Meanwhile, the old have gotten older. Although average life expectancy in the United States has dipped slightly in recent years, the overall trend has soared since the nineteenth century and will only continue to increase. Concerns about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/19/us-congress-presidency-gerontocracy" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">gerontocracy</a> are now on the rise, with <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/04/most-americans-favor-maximum-age-limits-for-federal-elected-officials-supreme-court-justices/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">growing majorities</a> of Americans expressing support for instituting <em>maximum</em> age limits for federally elected officials, along with justices in the Supreme Court, where there have never been age requirements at all.</p>
2659.  
2660.  
2661.  
2662. <p>Those concerns are hardly unique to the United States.&nbsp;But as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/18/opinion/gabriel-attal-young-leaders/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">commentators</a>&nbsp;point out, the American political class is exceptionally old, its gerontocracy “a contrast with the rest of the world.”&nbsp;As the American republic enters its own advanced age (let’s hope not its senescence), its citizens may be forced to reconsider the “just precedency” long conferred on elders, and in so doing, perhaps, remove one of the very last privileges of birth.&nbsp;</p>
2663. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/age-before-duty/">Age Before Duty</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2664. ]]></content:encoded>
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2667. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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2672. </item>
2673. <item>
2674. <title>Food That Prolongs Your Life</title>
2675. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/food-that-prolongs-your-life/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=food-that-prolongs-your-life</link>
2676. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/food-that-prolongs-your-life/#respond</comments>
2678. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Ralph Nader /  Nader.org]]></dc:creator>
2679. <pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2024 17:44:14 +0000</pubDate>
2680. <category><![CDATA[Arts & Culture]]></category>
2681. <category><![CDATA[Book Review]]></category>
2682. <category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
2683. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
2684. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
2685. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295552</guid>
2686.  
2687. <description><![CDATA[<p>Jean Carper shows that people who eat “optimal” diets can slow their aging process and add years to their lives.</p>
2688. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/food-that-prolongs-your-life/">Food That Prolongs Your Life</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2689. ]]></description>
2690. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
2691. <p>It is not often that a best-selling author and correspondent on consumer, food, medical, and health issues comes up with an idea for all Eaters that nobody has thought of before. Jean Carper, with sixty years of experience, has done just that with her brand-new book provocatively titled “100 Life or Death Foods: A Scientific Guide to Which Foods Prolong Life or Kill You Prematurely.”</p>
2692.  
2693.  
2694.  
2695. <p>Based on scientific studies about the life-expectancy effect of different foods – positive and negative – (many cited in the book’s Appendix and available at the National Institutes of Health Library of Medicine). Carper writes: “The evidence is stunningly clear that people who eat ‘optimal’ diets can slow their aging process and add years to their lives.”</p>
2696.  
2697.  
2698.  
2699. <p>Carper reports that researchers have found common legumes (beans, peas, soybeans), whole grains, and nuts, extend longevity, while refined grains (white bread), sugar-sweetened beverages, heavy salt use, and red and processed meats can shorten one’s life.</p>
2700.  
2701.  
2702.  
2703. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The evidence is stunningly clear that people who eat ‘optimal’ diets can slow their aging process and add years to their lives.”</p></blockquote></figure>
2704.  
2705.  
2706.  
2707. <p>Carper’s book is instantly usable because she efficiently runs through specific foods. For example, studies give high life-extension marks to apples, bananas, beets, berries, cabbage, carrots, hot chili peppers, coffee, eggplant, fermented food (pickles and sauerkraut), garlic grapes and raisins, green leafy veggies, herbs and spices, kale, oats, olives and olive oil, brown rice, tea, tomatoes, vinegar, yogurt and whole grain cereals.</p>
2708.  
2709.  
2710.  
2711. <p>On the life-shortening side, she names alcoholic beverages, candy, diet sodas, cured meats (bacon, hot dogs), fried foods, ice cream, fruit juices (stripped of fiber and called “high-calorie sugar water”) ultra-processed foods, including those labeled with high amounts of sucrose, glucose, fructose, corn syrup, and refined sugary cereals that corporate hucksters advertise to youngsters.</p>
2712.  
2713.  
2714.  
2715. <p>In addition to specific foods, Carper explains why the Mediterranean Diet is so superior to the corporate Western Diet. She also praises the Dash Diet (similar to the Mediterranean Diet) which she reports as a “famous blood pressure downer.” She advocates getting your protein more from plants than from animals.</p>
2716.  
2717.  
2718.  
2719. <p>Much of the “bad food” cited in “100 Life or Death Foods” is high on the list of the corporate marketeers who exploit “taste and texture” – meaning sugar, salt, and fats – to seduce children at a young age for a lifetime of ingesting junk food and junk drink. Their advertising is relentless, with heavy psychological manipulation. Fast food companies know from their own research the damage they have been doing to the health of their customers. That is why they fill their ads with lies and deceptions and have focused promotions on “kiddy TV,” over the decades.</p>
2720.  
2721.  
2722.  
2723. <p>The natural foods grown locally for generations have been mostly displaced by pesticide-heavy factory farms that fuel processed corporate diets.</p>
2724.  
2725.  
2726.  
2727. <p>This book is a guide for all eaters to work their way back to unprocessed natural foods, with organic-certified labels. These foods have another advantage – they frequently come in at lower prices than steaks, chops, and highly processed foods, including those from fancy bakeries.</p>
2728.  
2729.  
2730.  
2731. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The natural foods grown locally for generations have been mostly displaced by pesticide-heavy factory farms that fuel processed corporate diets.</p></blockquote></figure>
2732.  
2733.  
2734.  
2735. <p>Carper recognizes, of course, that many factors influence life expectancy, such as genetics, exercise, lifestyles, smoking, pollution, alcohol abuse, and, of course, endemic poverty. Inadequate healthcare and health insurance also contribute to shortened life expectancies. However, food is something people can have personal control over without asking the permission of higher authorities.</p>
2736.  
2737.  
2738.  
2739. <p>Some people are in a position to grow their own vegetables and fruits and share the harvest with neighbors. Now you have what Carper calls “a unique, up to date, one stop guide to more than 100 common foods, beverages and popular diets, revealing whether they prolong health and life or accelerate aging and death.”</p>
2740.  
2741.  
2742.  
2743. <p>The guide works for all ages as well. It will show you that nutritious and delicious food prepared with all kinds of simple recipes can be healthy and tasty. (See,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/100-LIFE-DEATH-FOODS-Prematurely/dp/B0CPW7CXFY" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">100 Life or Death Foods: A Scientific Guide to Which Foods Prolong Life or Kill You Prematurely</a>, December 9, 2023).</p>
2744. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/food-that-prolongs-your-life/">Food That Prolongs Your Life</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2745. ]]></content:encoded>
2747. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/food-that-prolongs-your-life/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
2748. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
2751. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_125302078-877x585.jpeg" length="518143" type="image/jpeg" />
2752. <media:thumbnail url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_125302078-877x585.jpeg" />
2753. </item>
2754. <item>
2755. <title>Gaza War Is Testing Jordan’s Stability</title>
2756. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/gaza-war-is-testing-jordans-stability/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gaza-war-is-testing-jordans-stability</link>
2757. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/gaza-war-is-testing-jordans-stability/#respond</comments>
2759. <dc:creator><![CDATA[CONNOR ECHOLS /  Responsible Statecraft ]]></dc:creator>
2760. <pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2024 16:24:31 +0000</pubDate>
2761. <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
2762. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
2763. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
2764. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
2765. <category><![CDATA[Wounds of War]]></category>
2766. <category><![CDATA[gaza]]></category>
2767. <category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
2768. <category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
2769. <category><![CDATA[jordan]]></category>
2770. <category><![CDATA[palestinian]]></category>
2771. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295541</guid>
2772.  
2773. <description><![CDATA[<p>Amman is facing a delicate balancing act as Israel’s war on Gaza threatens to further inflame regional tensions.</p>
2774. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/gaza-war-is-testing-jordans-stability/">Gaza War Is Testing Jordan’s Stability</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2775. ]]></description>
2776. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
2777. <p class="has-small-font-size"><em>This article was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/gaza-war-destabilising-jordan" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">co-published</a>&nbsp;with The New Arab.</em></p>
2778.  
2779.  
2780.  
2781. <p><strong>Iranian missiles lit up the sky</strong> over Jordan this weekend as Israeli jets reportedly scrambled alongside their French, Jordanian, and U.S. counterparts to intercept the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/why-iran-attacked-israel-and-what-could-happen-next" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>unprecedented barrage</u></a>.</p>
2782.  
2783.  
2784.  
2785. <p>On the ground, regular Jordanians got their first taste of what could escalate to a broader war. Videos&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Sprinterfactory/status/1779289195720171734" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>showed</u></a>&nbsp;charred remnants of missiles in Marj al-Hamam, a quiet neighborhood a short drive from downtown Amman. Some responded with levity,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/harasis2010/status/1779502690982154439" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>placing</u></a>&nbsp;ads on the Arab equivalent of Craigslist for a “used missile”.</p>
2786.  
2787.  
2788.  
2789. <p>But the overwhelming response was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/news/jordanians-angered-governments-downing-iran-missiles" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>anger</u></a>. Jordan’s defense of Israel led to a firestorm of criticism and conspiracy on social media, with posters&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/news/did-jordans-princess-salma-shoot-down-iranian-drones" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>falsely claiming</u></a>&nbsp;that a Jordanian princess had participated in the interceptions, while others shared fake images of King Abdullah in an Israeli uniform.</p>
2790.  
2791.  
2792.  
2793. <p>The king and his deputies responded by insisting that they would shoot down any unauthorized objects in Jordanian airspace, but it remains unclear if regular Jordanians are buying that claim.</p>
2794.  
2795.  
2796.  
2797. <p>“Things are very tense right now in Jordan,” said Sean Yom, a political science professor at Temple University. “The Jordanian government is obviously trying to do the best job that it can in just getting out of this, but it&#8217;s not easy.”</p>
2798.  
2799.  
2800.  
2801. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Jordan’s defense of Israel led to a firestorm of criticism and conspiracy on social media.</p></blockquote></figure>
2802.  
2803.  
2804.  
2805. <p>This latest escalation of the Gaza war highlights the ways Israel’s campaign risks destabilizing some of the Middle East’s most conflict-averse states. The strikes, themselves a response to an Israeli bombing of an Iranian consulate, came just a few months after Iran-aligned militias attacked a U.S. base in Jordan and killed three American soldiers.</p>
2806.  
2807.  
2808.  
2809. <p>As the U.S. seeks to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/where-do-abraham-accords-leave-jordan" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>forge diplomatic ties</u></a>&nbsp;between Arab states and Israel, Amman’s situation also offers a stark reminder that normalization with autocratic governments does not equal normalization with those countries’ citizens.</p>
2810.  
2811.  
2812.  
2813. <p>In recent years, the American approach to the Middle East has largely focused on freezing the situation as it stands. The Abraham Accords were designed to give Israel a stronger place in the region, allowing the Jewish state to build on previous peace deals with Jordan and Egypt and establish relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Morocco, and Bahrain. The deal is simple: The U.S. will invest in your regime’s stability if you accept Israel as it exists today.</p>
2814.  
2815.  
2816.  
2817. <p>But it’s not clear that these&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/will-arab-israeli-normalisation-survive-gaza-war" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>internal tensions</u></a>&nbsp;can stay on ice as Gaza burns. In Jordan, decades of lavish U.S. aid has done little to mollify the anger that average citizens — many of whom are Palestinians — feel over Israel’s actions.</p>
2818.  
2819.  
2820.  
2821. <p>For months, Jordanians have held&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/features/can-jordan-protest-movement-force-divorce-israel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>daily protests</u></a>&nbsp;outside of the Israeli embassy in Amman. The government, anxious to avoid a diplomatic crisis with Israel, has cracked down on the rallies with large-scale arrests and even a few clashes with protesters.</p>
2822.  
2823.  
2824.  
2825. <p>Jordan’s role in downing Iranian drones over the weekend has further inflamed sentiments both inside the country and across the region, according to Nader Hashemi, an expert on Middle East politics and a professor at Georgetown University.</p>
2826.  
2827.  
2828.  
2829. <p>“The United States has to realize that its almost unconditional support for Israel in Gaza is producing these types of destabilizing effects,” Hashemi said. “It&#8217;s going to increase the instability in Jordan.”</p>
2830.  
2831.  
2832.  
2833. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>A ‘very delicate’ balance</strong></h3>
2834.  
2835.  
2836.  
2837. <p>Jordan is built on a series of contradictions. The country has a largely Palestinian population but maintains a close relationship with Israel. It hosts an enormous number of refugees despite&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newarab.com/analysis/can-jordan-ever-escape-israels-grip-water-resources" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>barely having enough water</u></a>&nbsp;to sustain its own citizenry. The royal court convenes a parliament but more or less ignores any decisions that the legislature provides.</p>
2838.  
2839.  
2840.  
2841. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Jordan is built on a series of contradictions. The country has a largely Palestinian population but maintains a close relationship with Israel.</p></blockquote></figure>
2842.  
2843.  
2844.  
2845. <p>These compromises are part of an understandable balancing act on the part of Jordanian officials, who must find a way to govern a small, resource-poor state in a war-torn region, argues Rami Khouri, a Jordanian-American journalist of Palestinian descent and a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut.</p>
2846.  
2847.  
2848.  
2849. <p>“That balance is very delicate, but it&#8217;s always been there,” Khouri said, noting that he doesn’t expect the latest escalation to cause a major crisis. “The Jordanians have always figured it out.”</p>
2850.  
2851.  
2852.  
2853. <p>This equilibrium has grown unsteady in recent years as deep economic woes have ravaged the country. Jordan’s unemployment rate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/jordan/overview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>sits</u></a>&nbsp;at roughly 22%, with nearly half of young people unable to find a job, according to the World Bank. Authorities have also cracked down on protests and shuttered some of the country’s most powerful unions. The war in Gaza has added significant fuel to this growing fire by highlighting the distance between Jordanians and their leaders.</p>
2854.  
2855.  
2856.  
2857. <p>Even prior to the war, 19% of Jordanians&nbsp;<a href="https://www.namasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/4th-Wave-of-22Foreign-Relations-Survey-202322.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>told</u></a>&nbsp;pollsters that Amman’s primary foreign policy goal should be to champion the Palestinian cause — more than twice the number who said Jordan should prioritize its own security. (It’s telling that fully 40% of those surveyed said the top priority should be facilitating economic agreements that promote growth and jobs.)</p>
2858.  
2859.  
2860.  
2861. <p>This does not necessarily mean that the average Jordanian is opposed to all cooperation with Israel, as Jamal al-Tahat of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) notes. After all, Jordan relies on Israel for water and trade, two essential factors for the desert country. In al-Tahat’s view, the main concern is about whether Amman is getting a fair deal in its relationship with Tel Aviv, coupled with a deep anger over Israel’s actions in Gaza.</p>
2862.  
2863.  
2864.  
2865. <p>But it’s hard to ignore the fact that the latest protests are “very new in terms of size and in terms of the determination of the people,” al-Tahat said.</p>
2866.  
2867.  
2868.  
2869. <h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Between Iraq and a hard place</strong></h3>
2870.  
2871.  
2872.  
2873. <p>To understand Jordan’s predicament, one need only look at a map. To its north and east are Syria and Iraq, both of which have long suffered from instability and war. Jordan’s neighbors to the west are Israel and Palestine, and its only port is a thin strip of land on the Red Sea near the border with Saudi Arabia.</p>
2874.  
2875.  
2876.  
2877. <p>These geographical facts have left the monarchy with little choice but to find a powerful patron to protect its interests. The U.S. has been more than happy to fill that role so long as Jordan toes the American line on regional issues.</p>
2878.  
2879.  
2880.  
2881. <p>From America’s point of view, it’s an easy deal. A 2021 agreement&nbsp;<a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/03/21/Jordan-announces-new-US-defense-deal-allowing-free-entry-of-American-troops" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><u>gave</u></a>&nbsp;the U.S. military unparalleled independence for its operations in Jordan, allowing American troops to enter and transit the country as they please. The relationship gives Washington a nearly unlimited base of operations at the heart of the Middle East.</p>
2882.  
2883.  
2884.  
2885. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>One thing is certain, according to Yom: A regional war would be “cataclysmic” for Jordan.</p></blockquote></figure>
2886.  
2887.  
2888.  
2889. <p>For the royal court, U.S. backing offers a crucial layer of security, especially in moments like today. “The situation is not going to threaten the stability of the country as long as you still have the large-scale American military, financial support for Jordan,” Khouri said.</p>
2890.  
2891.  
2892.  
2893. <p>But close ties with the U.S. and Israel come with strings attached. The regime has little choice but to allow both countries to use its airspace when crises occur, but it must hold onto a certain level of plausible deniability to avoid angering the Jordanian public. “If the government admits this, it would be seen in the eyes of many Jordanians as a collaborator with Israel, and that would contravene the spirit of the Jordanian government&#8217;s official stance,” Yom said.</p>
2894.  
2895.  
2896.  
2897. <p>It remains unclear how Jordan’s regime could respond if a full-scale war breaks out between Israel and Iran. Experts who spoke with Responsible Statecraft/The New Arab all doubted that Amman would proactively join the conflict, but a strong possibility remains that it could get dragged into battle despite its best efforts to stay on the sidelines. One thing is certain, according to Yom: A regional war would be “cataclysmic” for Jordan.</p>
2898.  
2899.  
2900.  
2901. <p>So how can U.S. policymakers avoid such a disaster? They can start by preaching restraint to the Israelis as they weigh further strikes on Iranian assets in the region, Yom argued. “That’s the only way Jordan is able to get out of this very difficult situation with as little damage as possible,” he said.</p>
2902. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/gaza-war-is-testing-jordans-stability/">Gaza War Is Testing Jordan’s Stability</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
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2912. <item>
2913. <title>Report: Attacks on Indigenous Land Defenders on the Rise</title>
2914. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/report-attacks-on-indigenous-land-defenders-on-the-rise/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=report-attacks-on-indigenous-land-defenders-on-the-rise</link>
2915. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/report-attacks-on-indigenous-land-defenders-on-the-rise/#respond</comments>
2917. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sarah Sax /  Grist]]></dc:creator>
2918. <pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2024 16:21:11 +0000</pubDate>
2919. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
2920. <category><![CDATA[DEIB]]></category>
2921. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
2922. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
2923. <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
2924. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
2925. <category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category>
2926. <category><![CDATA[freedom of speech]]></category>
2927. <category><![CDATA[indigenous rights]]></category>
2928. <category><![CDATA[Maasai]]></category>
2929. <category><![CDATA[united nations]]></category>
2930. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295544</guid>
2931.  
2932. <description><![CDATA[<p>Indigenous peoples around the world are harassed and killed at alarming rates. Will the world act?</p>
2933. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/report-attacks-on-indigenous-land-defenders-on-the-rise/">Report: Attacks on Indigenous Land Defenders on the Rise</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
2934. ]]></description>
2935. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
2936. <p class="has-small-font-size"><em>This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, Native News Online, and APTN.</em></p>
2937.  
2938.  
2939.  
2940. <p><strong>When around<a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/06/tanzanian-authorities-brutally-violated-maasai-amid-forced-evictions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"> 70,000 Indigenous Maasai</a></strong> were expelled from their lands in northern Tanzania in 2022, it didn’t happen in a vacuum. For years, the Tanzanian government has systematically attacked Maasai communities, imprisoning <a href="https://grist.org/indigenous/indigenous-maasai-ask-the-united-nations-to-intervene-on-human-rights-abuses/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Maasai leaders and land defenders</a> on trumped-up charges,<a href="https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/looming-threat-eviction" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"> confiscating livestock</a>, using <a href="https://grist.org/global-indigenous-affairs-desk/after-violent-evictions-indigenous-maasai-call-human-rights-investigation-a-sham/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">lethal violence</a>, and claiming that the Maasai’s pastoralist lifestyle <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/6/16/in-tanzania-the-maasai-fight-eviction-over-statconservation-plot" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">is causing environmental degradation</a>—a lifestyle that has <a href="https://grist.org/indigenous/sweden-sami-unesco-world-heritage-indigenous-rights-iron-mine/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">shaped and sustained</a> the land that the Maasai have lived on for centuries. This rise in criminalization, especially in the face of mining, development, and conservation is being noted in Indigenous communities around the world and was the key focus of <a href="https://www.docip.org/en/indigenous-peoples-at-the-un/permanent-forum/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">a report</a> released this week at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, the largest gathering of Indigenous activists, policymakers, and leaders in the world.</p>
2941.  
2942.  
2943.  
2944. <p>“It’s a very serious concern because the Indigenous people who have been resisting the taking over of their lands and territories, they are the ones who most commonly face these charges and criminalization,” Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples told a packed panel on the topic on Tuesday. “There is a need to focus on criminalization because this is what brings fear to Indigenous communities and it is also what curtails them in their capacity to assert their right to self-determination.”</p>
2945.  
2946.  
2947.  
2948. <p>The report “Criminalization of Indigenous Peoples’ human rights” lays out the mechanisms by which Indigenous Peoples around the world are increasingly facing criminalization and violations of their rights with impunity. Indigenous land, subsistence and governance rights are often poorly implemented if at all, leading to violations when they intersect with government and third party interests, especially in extractive industries and conservation. In addition to historical discrimination, a lack of access to justice for Indigenous rights holders—including environmental and human rights defenders, journalists, and communities—leads to higher rates of arrests and incarcerations. The <a href="https://www.docip.org/en/indigenous-peoples-at-the-un/permanent-forum/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">report</a> provides recommendations for UN bodies, states, and other relevant actors to better address this growing threat.</p>
2949.  
2950.  
2951.  
2952. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“There is a need to focus on criminalization because this is what brings fear to Indigenous communities and it is also what curtails them in their capacity to assert their right to self-determination.”</p></blockquote></figure>
2953.  
2954.  
2955.  
2956. <p>The use of criminal law to punish and dissuade people from protesting or speaking out is typically the way people understand criminalization, said Fergus Mackay, a Senior Legal Counsel and Policy Advisor to Indigenous Peoples Rights International, an organization that works to protect Indigenous Peoples rights defenders. But the bulk of criminalization Indigenous Peoples face actually stems from the inadequate recognition or non-recognition of their rights by governments. “The lack of recognition of Indigenous rights in national legal frameworks is at the heart of this issue,” Mackay said.</p>
2957.  
2958.  
2959.  
2960. <p>This is especially prevalent when those rights intersect with public or protected lands, or areas that overlap with extractive interests,&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/indigenous/sweden-sami-unesco-world-heritage-indigenous-rights-iron-mine/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">conservation</a>, or climate mitigation measures. For example in Canada,<a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/features/the-legal-fishery-sparking-arrests-and-violence/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;First Nations Fishermen</a>&nbsp;are being arrested and harassed by federal fisheries officers for fishing–rights protected by treaty. In the Democratic republic of the Congo, Baka Indigenous peoples have been beaten, imprisoned, and prevented from using their customary forest by eco guards&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/armed-ecoguards-funded-by-wwf-beat-up-congo-tribespeople" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">hired to protect wildlife</a>. A 2018 study estimated that&nbsp;<a href="https://rightsandresources.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Cornered-by-PAs-Brief_RRI_June-2018.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">more than a quarter million&nbsp;</a>Indigenous peoples have been evicted due to carbon-offset schemes, tourism, and other activities that lead to the creation of protected areas.</p>
2961.  
2962.  
2963.  
2964. <p>“The criminalization of Indigenous People could also be considered the criminalization of the exercise of practicing Indigenous rights,” said Naw Ei Ei Min, a member of Myanmar’s Indigenous Karen peoples and an expert UNPFII member at Tuesday’s panel.</p>
2965.  
2966.  
2967.  
2968. <p>Defamation and smear campaigns through social media are often used in the lead-up to false criminal charges, especially when Indigenous peoples speak up against government-supported private companies investing in large-scale projects on their traditional lands, said Tauli-Corpuz.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/05/berta-caceres-assassination-roberto-david-castillo-found-guilty" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Berta Cárceres</a>, the renowned Indigenous Lenca environmental defender who opposed the development of the Agua Zarca dam in Honduras, had previously been detained on fabricated allegations of usurpation of land, coercion and possession of an illegal firearm before she was killed in 2016. Tauli-Corpuz, the former Special Rapporteur, along with around 30 other Indigenous leaders, was herself placed on a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.iwgia.org/en/philippines/3272-terrorist-accusations-against-joan-carling" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">terrorist list in 2018</a>&nbsp;by the Philippine government, a move that was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/statement/statement-response-allegations-terrorism-against-un-special-rapporteurs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">criticized harshly</a>&nbsp;by the UN.</p>
2969.  
2970.  
2971.  
2972. <p>Criminalization comes with serious consequences. In 2021,<a href="https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/decade-defiance/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;of the 200 land</a>&nbsp;and environmental defenders killed worldwide, more than 40 per cent were Indigenous. According to Indigenous Peoples Rights International, an organization founded in part to address the growing concern over criminalization of Indigenous Peoples, despite representing only 6% of the global population, Indigenous defenders suffered nearly<a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/from-us/briefings/protector-not-prisoner-exploring-the-rights-violations-criminalization-of-indigenous-peoples-in-climate-actions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;20% of attacks between 2015 and 2022</a>&nbsp;and were much more likely to experience violent attacks.</p>
2973.  
2974.  
2975.  
2976. <p>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.docip.org/en/indigenous-peoples-at-the-un/permanent-forum/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">UN report</a>&nbsp;also pointed to the high rates of incarceration of Indigenous People, and their disproportionate risk of arrest. In Canada, dozens of members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, who have long protested the creation of the Coastal GasLink pipeline that will cross their unceded territory, have been arrested and await trial in Canada. That trial is currently on hold because of allegations of<a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/canada-amnesty-criminalization-surveillance-wetsuweten-land-defenders/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;excessive force and harassment of the police</a>.&nbsp;</p>
2977.  
2978.  
2979.  
2980. <p>In countries like New Zealand and Australia, Indigenous peoples are already massively overrepresented in prisons. In Australia, despite making up only 3% of the population, Aboriginal Australians make&nbsp;<a href="https://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/law/aboriginal-prison-rates" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">up almost 30% of the incarcerated population</a>. “This really speaks about the racism and discrimination that exists, which is the foundation for filing the criminalization cases against them,” said Tauli-Corpuz.</p>
2981.  
2982.  
2983.  
2984. <p>Indigenous journalists were included in this year’s report as being increasingly at risk of criminalization. In 2020 Anastasia Mejía Tiriquiz, a Guatemalan Kʼicheʼ Mayan journalist<a href="https://cpj.org/awards/anastasia-mejia-guatemala/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"> was arrested</a> and charged with sedition after reporting on a protest against the municipal government. And just this year, Brandi Morin, an award-winning Cree/Iroquois/French journalist from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-arrest-of-indigenous-journalist-brandi-morin-chills-press-freedom/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">was arrested while</a> covering an Indigenous-led homeless encampment in Edmonton.</p>
2985.  
2986.  
2987.  
2988. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The criminalization of Indigenous People could also be considered the criminalization of the exercise of practicing Indigenous rights.”</p></blockquote></figure>
2989.  
2990.  
2991.  
2992. <p>Indigenous Peoples are also affected by the growing use of criminal law to deter free speech and protests. Since the Indigenous-led protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock reservation in 2016<a href="https://minnesotareformer.com/2022/09/15/24-states-have-considered-harsher-penalties-for-pipeline-protesters-since-dapl-standoff/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;lawmakers in two dozen states</a>&nbsp;in the US have taken up bills that ratchet up penalties for pipeline protesters. Globally, laws targeting everything from anti-terrorism, national security, and free speech only add to the ability for states to lay criminal charges on Indigenous activists.&nbsp;</p>
2993.  
2994.  
2995.  
2996. <p>Olnar Ortiz Bolívar, an Indigenous Baré lawyer from Venezuela who works to defend the rights of Indigenous communities, has been the target of both physical violence and harassment for his work in the Amazon, an area where illegal miners, criminal organizations, and the government are competing for control of resources,<a href="https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/venezuela-depends-gold-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;especially gold</a>. He has been an<a href="https://www.heartsonvenezuela.com/the-orinoco-mining-arc-did-away-with-self-determination-in-the-venezuelan-amazon/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;outspoken critic</a>&nbsp;of the Government-designated mining area in southern Venezuela known as the Orinoco Mining Arc.&nbsp; Now he fears that a new bill introduced by the<a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article287431415.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;Maduro regime into congress</a>, that effectively turns dissent against the government and protesting into a criminal act, will severely affect his ability to continue to speak out against such projects.</p>
2997.  
2998.  
2999.  
3000. <p>“It’s a contradiction because we have rights in theory, but we don’t have the right to practice those,” he said. “What they are doing is taking away the freedom of expression of Venezuelans and, evidently, of the Indigenous People, who are increasingly vulnerable.”</p>
3001.  
3002.  
3003.  
3004. <p>As countries attempt to reach their goals of protecting 30% of their lands and waters by 2030 along with growing demand for transition minerals, criminalization of Indigenous Peoples is likely to grow, say experts. A survey of more than 5000 existing “energy transition mineral” projects found that<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00994-6" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;more than half were located on</a>&nbsp;or near Indigenous Peoples’ lands; for unmined deposits, that figure was much higher.&nbsp;</p>
3005.  
3006.  
3007.  
3008. <p>The report set forth a series of recommendations to counteract criminalization, emphasizing the importance of revising national laws, improving measures to protect Indigenous human rights defenders and access to justice, and promoting efforts to prevent, reverse and remedy criminalization and its consequences.</p>
3009. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/report-attacks-on-indigenous-land-defenders-on-the-rise/">Report: Attacks on Indigenous Land Defenders on the Rise</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
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