ICE, Ricardo Rossello Resigns, Venezuela and more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos July 21 - 28

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.


This list covers the week of July 21 - 28.

1) Do they know it’s a tax haven? Live Aid star Bob Geldof named in Mauritian finance leaks

Phil Miller, The Morning Star

BOB GELDOF used a tax haven to make money from business deals across Africa, according to leaked documents.

2) Huge swathes of the Arctic on fire, ‘unprecedented’ satellite images show

Harry Cockburn, The Independent 

Vast swathes of the Arctic are suffering from "unprecedented" wildfires, new satellite images have revealed.

3) The House Voted To Condemn The Boycott Israel Movement Over Protests From Reps. Ilhan Omar And Rashida Tlaib

Kadia Goba and Addy Baird, BuzzFeed News 

The House voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to formally oppose the Palestinian-backed movement to boycott Israel, over the objections of Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

4) “NATO get out from the Balkans, the Balkans belong to the people!”

Muhammed Shabeer, People's Dispatch 

Interview with Aleksandar Ðenić, first secretary of the League of Yugoslav Communist Youth (SKOJ), the youth wing of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ).

5) NAVIGATING A SEA OF SANCTIONS

Bennett Guillaume, People's Voice

In April a Japanese newspaper revealed a policy document purportedly detailing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s economic strategy for the 2016-2020 period.

6) The red locomotive in Brussels? Interview with the Workers’ Party of Belgium MEP


Denis Rogatyuk, Green Left Weekly 

On May 27, Europe woke up to what seemed like a new stage in the resurgence of the far-right and reactionary forces and a major retreat for the left in the elections to the European parliament.

7) CANADA: (STILL) A NUCLEAR WEAPONS COUNTRY

People's Voice Editorial Board 

Every August, commemorations of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are an important reminder of the dangers of nuclear weapons and the importance of ongoing disarmament efforts. People in Canada generally don’t think of this as a nuclear weapons country – the deployment of nuclear-tipped Bomarc missiles in Canada was ended in 1972, and the nuclear-armed CF-101 fighter jet was replaced by the non-nuclear CF-18 in 1984. More often than not, people here consider nuclear disarmament “an American issue.”

8) A Survivor's Granddaughter Reflects On Tulsa Race Massacre: 'It Was A Horrendous Situation'

Robin Young, WBUR

Last month before a House subcommittee, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates referred to something called “Black Wall Street” in making his case for slavery reparations.

9) GREEK ELECTIONS AN OMEN FOR CANADA?

People's Voice Editorial Board

Immediately after Greece’s general election, KKE General Secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas said that “the right-wing and conservative policies of the SYRIZA government paved the way to New Democracy … it purified and resurrected them.” Describing the SYRIZA leadership as “sellouts to Trump and the EU Commission,” Koutsoumbas explained that the Tsipras party’s cynical use of socialist slogans had resulted in a demoralized and demobilized left in the labour and people’s movements. This opened the door for New Democracy to return to power.

10) This Supreme Court Case Made School District Lines A Tool For Segregation

Elissa Nadworny and Cory Turner, NPR

Roughly 9 million children — nearly 1 in 5 public school students in the U.S. — attend schools that are racially isolated and receive far less money than schools just a few miles away. That's according to a sweeping new review of the nation's most divisive school district borders from EdBuild, a nonprofit that investigates school funding inequities.

11) Food Stamp Cuts To Hurt Poor, According to Trump Gvt's Own Study

Telesur 

A Trump administration proposal to reduce eligibility for food stamps could undercut access to basic nutrition for millions of Americans and hurt some low-cost retailers, according to an analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which runs the program.

12) Puerto Rico's Governor Announces Resignation Effective Aug. 2

Telesur 

Puerto Rico's Governor Ricardo Rossello announced Wednesday at midnight his resignation effective Friday, August 2, 2019 at 5:00 pm local time, and will be replaced by the secretary of Justice, Wanda Vazquez.



13) Puerto Rico: Rossello Replacement Being Probed for Corruption

Telesur 

Puerto Ricans continue to protest as the role of governor passes from Ricardo Rossello to Secretary of Justice Wanda Vazquez who was already being investigated for corruption linked to Hurricane Maria aid provisions.

14) Latest victim is 138th FARC member killed since peace signed in Nov 2016

Justice for Colombia 

In addition to 138 FARC members, more than 500 social activists have been killed since the peace agreement was signed in November 2016.

15) Video of man taunting mom, daughter with slurs prompts more worries about racial tensions in Quebec

Jonathan Montpetit · CBC News

A white man accosted an Arabic-speaking woman and her two-year-old daughter earlier this week, uttering racial slurs and sexually violent threats in broad daylight on a Montreal street.

16) Meet Shahid Buttar, Pelosi’s Left-Wing Challenger

Natascha Elena Uhlmann, Jacobin 

Nancy Pelosi is facing a primary challenge from a civil rights lawyer who supports the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. Knocking her off would be a resounding win for the Left.

17) Outrage as Trump brands mostly black Baltimore 'infested mess'

Al Jazeera 

US President Donald Trump was hit with new accusations of racism on Saturday after he attacked a prominent African American congressman and branded the majority-black city of Baltimore an "infested mess".

18) Statement from our union at the Toronto public transit system

CUPE Local 2

TTC electrical workers call for FREE PUBLIC TRANSIT and a campaign of mass strikes and protests to BRING DOWN DOUG FORD.

19) OHIO REPUBLICANS BALKED AT A NUCLEAR BAILOUT, SO THE INDUSTRY ELECTED NEW REPUBLICANS — AND WALKED AWAY WITH $1.1 BILLION

Ryan Grim and Akela Lacy, The Intercept 

ON TUESDAY, a dark-money effort linked primarily to the Ohio nuclear industry delivered an audacious payoff, as a newly elected state legislature overcame years of opposition to shower a $1.1 billion bailout on two state nuclear plants.

20) Following U.S. education policy, Doug Ford declares public high schools open for business

Rick Salutin, Rabble

Among his sins, now rising up to haunt him before they even settle into the loam, Doug Ford has decreed that beginning in fall 2020, Ontario high school students will need to take four online courses to graduate.

21) Critics slam reports of Doug Ford's changes to Toronto relief line plan

CBC News

Critics are slamming Premier Doug Ford's transit plan, after reports that his government's new vision for a downtown relief line could be significantly different from the line the city already approved.

(Related: Of course Ford has not revealed plans for the TTC "Ontario Line". It will never be built.)

22) 18-Year-Old U.S. Citizen Held in Immigration Detention for a Month Has Finally Been Released

Emma Ockerman, Vice News 

The young, Texas-born U.S. citizen wrongly held in migrant detention for nearly a month was finally released on Tuesday.

23) Video Shows ICE Agents Smashing a Family’s Car Window and Dragging the Dad Out

Gaby Del Valle, Vice News

Kansas City officials and activist groups are blasting the Trump administration and the local police department over the brutal arrest of a local dad who got pulled over by ICE.

24) Trump’s Border Patrol Chief Admitted She Was Part Of A Secret Facebook Group Filled With Racist, Sexist Comments

Salvador Hernandez, BuzzFeed News

The chief of United States Border Patrol admitted to members of Congress she was a member of a secret Facebook group filled with racist and sexist posts, but claimed she was not aware of the troubling content until the group was revealed by reporters.

25) Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Administration Asylum Restrictions

Antonia Blumberg, HuffPost

A California federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from enforcing a new rule ending asylum protections for most Central American migrants.

26) AS IMMIGRANTS BECOME MORE AWARE OF THEIR RIGHTS, ICE STEPS UP RUSES AND SURVEILLANCE

Nausicaa Renner, The Intercept 

AMID THE TRUMP administration’s threats to accelerate deportations, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have increasingly been using deception and surveillance to make targeted arrests, according to immigrant rights groups across the country.

27) Another ‘NY Times’ biased report — this one about Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem

James North, Mondoweiss 

The New York Times had to report Israel’s shocking demolition yesterday of Palestinian apartment blocks in Jerusalem; the story was too big to ignore. But the paper’s Isabel Kershner cleverly tried to present Israel’s brutal action in the best possible way, while muffling the voices of the victims.

28) Western Media Losing Enthusiasm for Failing Coup in Venezuela

Lucas Koerner and Ricardo Vaz – FAIR

When previously unknown Venezuelan opposition politician Juan Guaidó stood up in an East Caracas plaza and declared himself “interim president” of the South American country, Western corporate media were ebullient.

29) Venezuela Hosts 25th Meeting of Leftist 'Sao Paulo Forum'

Telesur 

Embracing “Peace, Sovereignty and Prosperity of the Peoples” as a common goal, over 120 Latin American social and political organizations began Thursday the 25th Meeting of the Sao Paulo Forum (SPF) in Caracas, Venezuela.

30) Venezuela: High Court Rejects Guaido's TIAR Attempt

Telesur 

Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) has nullified the National Assembly’s attempt to reinstate the nation in the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), calling the move "an assault on the rule of law and the power of the Venezuelan people."

31) Cuba Has 9 Doctors Per 1000 Citizens, Highest in Its History

Telesur 

Cuba has more than 100,000 doctors, the highest number in the history of the country with a proportion of nine doctors per 1,000 citizens.

32) Amazon gold miners invade indigenous village in Brazil after its leader is killed

Dom Phillips, The Guardian 

Dozens of gold miners have invaded a remote indigenous reserve in the Brazilian Amazon where a local leader was stabbed to death and have taken over a village after the community fled in fear, local politicians and indigenous leaders said. The authorities said police were on their way to investigate.

See also: Puerto Rico Protests, Ilhan Omar, Israeli Apartheid & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos July 14 - 21

Police Violence and Misconduct, Colten Boushie, the Presumption of Innocence & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 28-February 4

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of  January 28 - February 4. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.


This installment has three entries from before the period. They have been integrated into the post.

1) This Student Newspaper Let A Nazi Sympathizer Write For Them

Ishmael N. Daro, BuzzFeed

A student newspaper in New Brunswick published a largely uncritical interview with a Nazi sympathizer in which he praised Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf, downplayed the horrors of residential schools, and claimed white supremacy was a myth invented by Jews. The paper also published a separate opinion piece by him in which he spread a slew of anti-Indigenous and anti-Semitic tropes.

Read the full article.

2) Feminism in the Coalfields: What Appalachians of the 1970s Can Teach Today’s Feminists

Jessica Wilkerson, Rewire

Appalachian feminism, which is to say feminism of working-class white and Black women who lived in a place long dominated by corporate officials, has volumes to teach us about meaningful efforts to reach gender equality, but more importantly, justice.

Read the full article.

3) Ontario PC Party president Rick Dykstra resigns after sexual assault accusation

Stephen Maher, Maclean's 

The Conservative Party was made aware of the allegation against the then federal MP, but it decided to let him run in the 2015 election.

Read the full article.

4) Poisoned toothpaste and exploding phones: Israel linked to 2,700 assassination operations in 70 years

Ethan Bronner, The National Post 

A new book also strongly suggests that Israel used radiation poisoning to kill Yasser Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, an act its officials have consistently denied.

Read the full article.

5) Mistreated: The legacy of segregated hospitals haunts Indigenous survivors.

Lauren Pelley, CBC News

CBC spoke to numerous hospital survivors and researchers about this segregated health-care system, as well as activists hoping to broaden the conversation about reconciliation and expose how decades of isolation and mistreatment have harmed First Nations and Inuit communities to this day.

Read the full article.

6) Judge slams Toronto police for ‘oppressive misconduct’ in man’s arrest

Jacques Gallant, The Toronto Star

In a dissenting opinion, Court of Appeal Justice Peter Lauwers found Toronto police violated a man’s charter rights during a backyard “fishing expedition” that resulted in gun and drug charges. The judge also questioned whether the same thing would have happened in a wealthier, whiter neighbourhood.

Read the full article.

7) Cleveland Indians Will Abandon Chief Wahoo Logo Next Year

David Waldstein, The New York Times

The Cleveland Indians will stop using the Chief Wahoo logo on their uniforms beginning in 2019, according to Major League Baseball, which said the popular symbol was no longer appropriate for use on the field.

Read the full article.

8) Squatters turn oligarch's empty London property into homeless shelter

Diane Taylor, The Guardian

A veteran group of squatters has occupied an empty £15m central London property purchased by a Russian oligarch in 2014 and opened it as a homeless shelter.

Read the full article.

9) Baltimore Cops Kept Toy Guns to Plant Just in Case They Shot an Unarmed Person 


Michael Harriot, The Root

In April 2016, a 13-year-old boy was shot by officers of the Baltimore Police Department. The boy ran when faced with the police, so they gave chase. During the chase, the police spotted the boy holding a gun, and when he turned, they shot the teenager. The youngster wasn’t critically injured, and it seemed like an open-and-shut case of a justifiable use of force.

Read the full article.

10) The presumption of innocence is for courtrooms, not politics

Michael Spratt, CBC News

The political reckoning was quick. In the span of less than a week, allegations of sexual harassment and sexual impropriety destroyed the political futures of four separate men in politics.

Read the full article.

11) #MeToo Journalism: The New Rules

Paul Adams, iPolitics

The allegations of sexual impropriety against Patrick Brown and his quick but reluctant resignation left some conservative columnists aghast. One of their targets was the journalism that has contributed so much to what we are now calling the #MeToo moment.

Read the full article.

12) Cornwallis statue to be removed from Halifax park after council vote

Anjuli Patil, CBC News

A controversial statue of Edward Cornwallis, the military officer who founded Halifax in 1749, will soon be temporarily removed from a park in the city's downtown.

Read the full article.

13) Halifax councillor under fire for retweeting pro-white group

 Emma Davie, CBC News

Halifax councillor Matt Whitman says he had no idea that a letter to city council that he retweeted on Thursday afternoon came from a white nationalist group.

Read the full article.

14) Vietnam remembers victory and losses 50 years after Tet Offensive

Manh Tung, Tuyet Nguyen & Tran Duy, VN Express International

Heroic memories are accompanied by pain and guilt, say veterans who lost hundreds of comrades.

Read the full article.

15) DANGEROUS TURN WITH NEW FAR RIGHT MILITIA IN PARTNERSHIP WITH UKRAINE POLICE’S

Ukraine Solidarity Campaign 

In a new dangerous turn 600 members of a new self-proclaimed National Guard (Національні Дружини ) marched through the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on 28 January.  Comprised of ex-members of the far right AZOV battalion the new National Guard declared its aim is to keep order on the streets and preserve a ‘Ukrainian Order’.

Read the full article.

16) Women in Iran remove hijabs in public to protest country’s Islamic dress code

Thomas Erdbrink, The Toronto Star

The protests, still small in number, are significant as a rare public sign that dissatisfaction with certain Islamic laws governing personal conduct may have reached a boiling point.

Read the full article.

17) As Australian Muslim women we don't have to be told what we can wear

Lydia Shelly, The Guardian

Australian Muslim women have done very well without being told what they can wear, “from day dot”, as Caroline Overington puts it in her opinion piece. And indeed, it is because Australian Muslim womanhood is “robust, hands-on, shoulder to the wheel”. We are resilient and savvy in negotiating political waters. Fashion has always been avant garde. When does fashion represent a far more inclusive and collaborative face of Australia than its social and political institutions? In 2018, apparently.

Read the full article.

18) 'The Rodney King of western Canada': killing of indigenous man heads to trial

Ashifa Kassam, The Guardian

The case of Colten Boushie, 22, killed after seeking help at a farm, has divided Canadians over race and policing.

Read the full article.

19) 'Deck is stacked against us,' says family of Colten Boushie after jury chosen for Gerald Stanley trial

Guy Quenneville and Jason Warick, CBC News

A relative of Colten Boushie says "the deck is stacked against us" following the selection of jurors in the trial of Gerald Stanley, the farmer accused of killing the 22-year-old Indigenous man.

Read the full article.

20) If the Grammys want to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, they have to address objectification

Meghan Murphy, Feminist Current

It’s not just representation that we need. It’s not just the naming and shaming of abusive men. It’s not just powerful performances. So long as arenas like the music industry continue to represent women as sexualized objects, our culture will never succeed in confronting issues like sexual harassment and rape. So long as we glorify strip clubs — places that men go so they don’t have to treat women as full human beings, places where they are told, “Yes, these women are here for you” — we will continue to replicate the same dynamics that led women to experience their many #MeToo moments. This imagery doesn’t just sell music, it sells misogyny. Real accountability therefore demands we move beyond individual men, and towards a cultural shift.

Read the full article.

21) In a Major Free Speech Victory, a Federal Court Strikes Down a Law that Punishes Supporters of Israel Boycott

Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

A FEDERAL JUDGE on Tuesday ruled that a Kansas law designed to punish people who boycott Israel is an unconstitutional denial of free speech. The ruling is a significant victory for free speech rights because the global campaign to criminalize, or otherwise legally outlaw, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has been spreading rapidly in numerous political and academic centers in the U.S. This judicial decision definitively declares those efforts — when they manifest in the U.S. — to be a direct infringement of basic First Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Read the full article.

22) What does Hollywood's reverence for child rapist Roman Polanski tell us?

Hadley Freeman, The Guardian

Polanski will turn 85 this year, and he has lived almost half his life under the shadow of what Weinstein described as “his so-called crime”. Polanski’s own attitude has remained bullish; in October last year he gave an interview in which he focused his ire on the judges who let him down. “I know what I am, what I have and haven’t done, how things really were and are,” he writes at the end of his autobiography. Thanks to the candour of Polanski, the rest of us have always known, too – including everyone in the film industry who has worked with him since.

Read the full article.

23) Trump Didn’t Bother to Say What Happened to the Biological Mother in His Cop Adoption Anecdote

Christina Cauterucci, Slate

Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address was stuffed with inspiring anecdotes, mostly about little boys, flags, military personnel, MS-13—standard State of the Union stuff. And then there was the very bizarre story that, if you happened to be only half-listening, kind of sounded like it glorified a police officer for stealing somebody’s baby.

Read the full article.

24) Alberta premier threatens economic retaliation against B.C. over bitumen restrictions

CBC News

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has threatened to retaliate economically against what she called an "unconstitutional" move by the B.C. government to delay construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

Read the full article.

25) No carbon cuts or ocean protection without pipeline, Trudeau says

CBC News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sought to bridge the divide between Alberta and British Columbia on Friday with a vow that climate change and spill protection programs won't go ahead unless the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion is built.

Read the full article.

26) Police and the privileged: Toronto force needs to redraw the line

Alok Mukherjee, The Globe and Mail

The handling by the Toronto police of the deaths of Toronto billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife, Honey, raises issues that should concern police forces across the country. The big question is this: Do Canada's police forces treat all murders equally, no matter what the victim's socio-economic, racial, ethnic or Indigenous background, or sexual orientation happens to be?

Read the full article.

27) Senate passes bill to make O Canada lyrics gender neutral

John Paul Tasker, CBC News

The Senate passed a bill that renders the national anthem gender neutral Wednesday despite the entrenched opposition of some Conservative senators.

Read the full article.

28) Assembly Of Manitoba Chiefs Calls Out Globe And Mail For 'Victim-Blaming Headline'

Emma Paling, The Huffington Post

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs called out The Globe and Mail on Wednesday for what it called a "sensationalistic headline" about slain teenager Tina Fontaine.

Read the full article.

29) After being beaten and marched naked through RCMP detachment, Siksika man sues Mounties

Meghan Grant, CBC News

A man from a southern Alberta First Nation who says he was badly beaten by RCMP officers and marched naked through the local detachment is suing the police force for nearly $2 million.

Read the full article.

30) French leftist Melenchon calls for SYRIZA's dismissal from Party of European Left

Ekathimerini

French leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon has called for SYRIZA to be thrown out of the Party of the European Left, accusing the Greek party of enforcing neoliberal policies and maintaining submitting to the orders of the European Commission.

Read the full article.

31) The 100-year-old protest posters that show women's outrage

BBC News

Recently rediscovered 100-year-old posters showing the struggle for votes for women are going on show for the first time. They pull no punches in their depiction of the strength of feeling among the women who fought for equal rights.

Read the full article.

32) The shocking reality of "abortion reversal" procedures in the US

Kat Lister, The Pool

It’s been labelled as “scary” and "bogus” – so why is the Trump administration endorsing anti-abortion treatments that put vulnerable women at risk?

Read the full article.

33) Sex dolls won’t stop rape and assault – that’s not how sex and abuse works

Rachel Hewitt, The Pool

If it feels like common sense to think of male sexual desire as an unstoppable tide, that’s largely because the English language encourages it. It is very hard to describe emotion, energy or desire without employing words like “erupting” or “outbursts”, passion needs to be "channelled" and not "bottled up". But there is no medical or psychiatric evidence to support claims that sexual desire works according to the laws of hydraulics, that men’s repression of harmful sexual desires is dangerous or that the deflection of those desires to an alternative outlet works like a safety valve. Instead, sociological research points to the opposite: that the consumption of media in which women are objectified and the display of misogynistic behaviour with sex dolls and prostitutes reinforces men’s misogynistic behaviour elsewhere, increasing men’s propensity to rape. When we discount the deeply entrenched idea that men’s libido works hydraulically, sex dolls and robots no longer seem like safety valves for harmful and misogynistic sexual practices but, instead, more chillingly, as opportunities for rehearsal.

Read the full article.

34) NDP Retains Former Fraser Institute Director as Top Civil Servant

 Andrew MacLeod, The Tyee

One of the top civil servants in the NDP government worked for the right-wing Fraser Institute and the Vancouver Sun, shooting down mainstream ideas like the need for environmental assessments, the right to organize unions and the requirement that employers pay a minimum wage.

Read the full article.

35) Tillerson Invokes Possibility of Pinochet-Style Coup in Venezuela

Telesur

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday raised the prospect of a military coup against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and seemingly praised past military dictatorships as "agents of change."

Read the full article.

36) Israeli lawmaker tells BBC he’d put Ahed Tamimi ‘in the hospital’ by kicking her face

 Jonathan Ofir, Mondoweiss

Israeli lawmaker Oren Hazan of the Likud Party was interviewed by the BBC on Wednesday, in a news report about Ahed Tamimi  titled “Is a slap an act of terror?”. Hazan opined that “a slap is terrorism” and described his response:

Read the full article.

37) Toronto’s female elected officials face sexual harassment, threats on job

Samantha Beattie, The Toronto Star

The Star sent a survey to female councillors and school board trustees asking if they’d experienced sexual harassment on the job. Fifteen shared their stories of harassment, discrimination.

Read the full article.

38) Cheap White Whine: Racism, Affirmative Action, and the Myth of White Victimhood

Tim Wise, Medium

But what about us? It’s a question of which white folks never seem to tire when discussing subjects like affirmative action, or other diversity initiatives intended to expand opportunity and access for people of color in higher education and the job market.

Read the full article.

39) First NDP premier of B.C., Dave Barrett, dead at 87

Tiffany Crawford, The Vancouver Sun

Dave Barrett, a wisecracking and flamboyant left-wing populist from east Vancouver who became B.C.’s first NDP premier, died this morning after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Read the full article.

See also: Patrick Brown, Holocaust Revisionism, the Arctic and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 21 - 28

See also: Martin Luther King Jr., Unifor, #MeToo and more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List January 14-21

Dunkirk, Venezuela, Israel, Baltimore & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List July 30 - August 6

This week's list of articles, news items and opinion pieces that I see as must reads if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.




This list covers the week of  July 30 - August 6. It is generally in order of the date of the article's release.

1) Right-Wing Colombia Leader Calls for Military Coup in Venezuela

Telesur

Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe urged the Venezuelan military to rebel against the democratically-elected government.

Read the full article.

2) The Rise and Fall of the “Freest Little City in Texas”

James McCandless, Texas Observer

How a libertarian experiment in city government fell apart over taxes, debt and some very angry people.

Read the full article.

3) 'Great unfairness': 2 more sex assault cases where victims were jailed to ensure their court testimony

Janice Johnston · CBC News

A victim 8 months pregnant was jailed the night before she was to testify.

Read the full article.

4) Petition: Canada, Hands Off Venezuela!

Venezuela Solidarity 

Dear Minister Freeland,

I am outraged by the position the Trudeau government has taken with regard to the escalating conflict in Venezuela. Once again the government has condemned Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, expressing serious concerns over the government’s plan for a Constituent Assembly, saying it’s “contrary to Venezuela’s Constitution”.  This is not only a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation but is also factually incorrect.  Article 347 and 348 of the Bolivarian Constitution clearly outlines its legitimacy and establishes the president’s right to convoke a National Constituent Assembly.

Read and sign the petition

5) What Mainstream Media Got Wrong About Venezuela's Constituent Assembly Vote

Carla Gonzalez, Telesur

Venezuelans voted Sunday for representatives of the National Constituent Assembly, amid what the government has called a targeted media campaign to destabilize the country and destroy its sovereignty.

International media outlets rushed to discredit the vote, sharing grossly misrepresentative accounts of the historic electoral process.

Read the full article.

6) Why the lack of Indian and African faces in Dunkirk matters

Sunny Singh, The Guardian

What a surprise that Nigel Farage has endorsed the new fantasy-disguised-as-historical war film, Dunkirk. Christopher Nolan’s movie is an inadvertently timely, thinly veiled Brexiteer fantasy in which plucky Britons heroically retreat from the dangerous shores of Europe. Most importantly, it pushes the narrative that it was Britain as it exists today – and not the one with a global empire – that stood alone against the “European peril”.

Read the full article.

7) Dunkirk, the War and the Amnesia of the Empire

Yasmin Khan, The New York Times

Two and a half million soldiers drawn from Britain’s empire in South Asia fought in World War II. But they are missing from many British commemorations and accounts of the war — an absence reinforced by Christopher Nolan’s new film “Dunkirk,” which does not feature any of the Indian soldiers who were present at the battle.

Read the full article.

8) Independent Jewish Voices Ranks NDP Candidates on their positions around Israel/Palestine

Independent Jewish Voices - Canada (IJV) and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) recently questioned the four NDP Leadership candidates prior to the start of online voting on September 18th, 2017.

Read the full article.

9) The Unbearable Whiteness of CBC’s Reporting of the Blue Jays Beer Can Tosser

Erin Kobayashi, The Torontoist

The CBC devotes 5,000 words to the redemption of one white man, but completely erases the racism hurled at POC players during the same baseball game.

Read the full article.

10) Baltimore drops dozens of cases after video appears to show police officers planting evidence

Jacey Fortin, The Toronto Star 

State attorneys are dismissing dozens of cases in Baltimore after reviewing a video that appears to show a police officer planting evidence at a crime scene while two other officers look on.

Read the full article.

11) Andrew Loku inquest provides eye-popping glimpse into police mindset

Alok Mukherjee, Now Magazine

Inquiry into the police shooting death of another Black man in crisis raises uncomfortable questions about racial bias and the weak systems of accountability that are in place when police get it wrong.

Read the full article.

12) Why are women with disabilities being given help to die, instead of help to live?

Carmela Hutchison, Rabble

People with disabilities and their caregivers are at risk for being made to say yes to medical assistance in dying when they don't want to.

Read the full article.

13) This anti-abortion hijacking of Black Lives Matter is cynical and offensive

Elizabeth Nelson, The Guardian

Both Lives Matter has got away with a misleading ad. But using the language of human rights can’t hide its true agenda: subjugating Northern Ireland’s women.

Read the full article.

14) First Nations women had 800% more overdoses: 'horrific' crisis' new B.C. data

David P. Ball, Metro Vancouver

The statistics are as shocking as the "horrific" crisis they measure, British Columbia's new mental health minister, Judy Darcy, warned Thursday.

Read the full article.

15) Ontario women to get free access to abortion pill starting Aug. 10

Meagan Fitzpatrick, CBC News

The Ontario government says it is giving women in the province more choice over their reproductive health by covering the cost of Mifegymiso, commonly referred to as an abortion pill, starting on Aug.10.

Read the full article.

16) Joseph Boyden Won’t Find Indigenous Identity In A Test Tube Of Spit

Robert Jago, Canadaland

In anticipation of a fall book tour for his new novel, Seven Matches, Joseph Boyden is back in the pages of Maclean’s magazine with an article restating his claim of First Nations ancestry, and anchoring that in the results of a DNA test.

Read the full article.

17) The Lost Cause Rides Again

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

HBO’s prospective series Confederate will offer an alternative history of post-Civil War America. It will ask the question, according to co-creator David Benioff,  “What would the world have looked like … if the South had won?” A swirl of virtual protests and op-eds have greeted this proposed premise. In response, HBO has expressed “great respect” for its critics but also said it hopes that they will “reserve judgment until there is something to see.”

Read the full article.

18) Galen Weston Knows Paying a Living Wage is Bad for Capitalism

Tannara Yelland, The Torontoist 

Galen Weston Jr., the mild-mannered, bespectacled grocery-store magnate you may recognize from President’s Choice commercials, is a thoroughly Canadian one-percenter. He is thoroughly Canadian in the sense that he isn’t flashy or grandiose like Richard Branson, and he doesn’t tout the benefits of vampirism or plot to destroy the free press, à la real-life super villain Peter Thiel. He is thoroughly of the one percent in the sense that his family is worth somewhere in the ballpark of $9 billion, he himself earned at least $5 million last year, and, despite that generous—one might even say obscene—level of wealth, he remains staunchly opposed to paying his employees enough money to live on.

Read the full article.

19) A perfect storm: homelessness, mental health, criminal law and no shelter beds

Sarah Shartal, The Toronto Star

This summer growing numbers of my clients in Toronto have stayed in jail because there were not shelter beds. Even Seaton House has put in cots. In one of the richest cities in the world we are keeping people in jail before trial because we cannot provide them a bed in a warehouse as their address.

Read the full article.

20) Facebook Apologizes To Black Activist For Censorship

NewsOne Staff

Activist and writer Ijeoma Oluo says her account was suspended for calling out racism.

Read the full article.

21) This is what really happens when prostitution is decriminalised

Julie Bindel, The Independent

The application form for opening a brothel in New Zealand is just two pages long: three pages shorter than the form needed to adopt a dog or cat from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home.

Read the full article.

22) Netanyahu's Looming Fall Is No Cause for Celebration

Gideon Levy, Haaretz

King Bibi’s departure is a necessary step, but by no means enough. Only a revolution in thinking will generate change in Israel.

Read the full article.

See also: Toronto Police, Star Trek, Omar Khadr & more -- The Left Chapter Weekly Reading List July 23 - 30

See also: Police Brutality, Thunder Bay, Ryerson & more -- The Left Chapter Sunday Reading List July 16 - 23

The beer can toss was bad. The racism at the Blue Jays game was much worse.

Image from a public tweet by Frank Gunn

By now I doubt there is a person in North America who has not heard about the great Beer Can Toss Toronto Blue Jays scandal of 2016 after some (likely inebriated) twit launched an overpriced beverage at Baltimore outfielder Hyun Soo Kim during the Wild Card playoff game Tuesday night.


It was an ugly incident that could have resulted in Kim's serious injury.


The beer can toss caused much outrage and rightly so. It also caused the city collectively a great deal of embarrassment, especially given that Toronto baseball fans have a fairly bad reputation to begin with.

One group of baseball fans pitched in to buy an ad on Facebook apologizing to the people of Baltimore. Mayor John Tory managed to find a moment to divert from his quest for fictional "efficiencies" in driving down city department budgets to, with his usual clarity and eloquence, denounce the evildoer as a "loon ball". He further noted that it was "just the behavior that was exhibited by one person".

Major League Baseball itself called for the beer can hooligan to be "prosecuted to the extent available" while Toronto police released a photo of the alleged offender and called for him to come forward. He subsequently did, while denying all wrongdoing, and now a section of the internet is consumed by watching blurry video over-and-over again claiming they have identified the "real shooter" as if this is some sad version of JFK or the X-Files.

There is no denying that, while hardly unprecedented in any ballpark, throwing anything onto the field of play or in the area of players during a sports game is serious, stupid, dangerous and boorish and that any louts caught doing it should face some consequence. In almost all cases, given it will usually prove the alcohol fueled momentary bad impulse of someone, this will and should end up being dealt with by a stadium ban and possibly anger management classes or community service, especially as it is unlikely that the person who did it will turn out to have been a hardened criminal.

But seemingly overshadowed by all of this is the fact that several sources reported that multiple fans hurled racist slurs at both Kim and his teammate Adam Jones who rushed to Kim's side and defense after the incident with the beer can.

CBC Radio's sports commentator reported hearing racist calls at the game and you can see fans yelling at Jones in videos of the night.



It is not so easy to try to claim this as simply a stupid or ignorant act by a single fan as, by all accounts, this involved many fans.

Canadians have long liked to believe that we do not have the kind of problems with racism that exist in the United States, and yet racist incidents like the one that happened Tuesday are all too common and institutionalized racism on the part of Canadian police and the Canadian state have a long and ongoing violent and oppressive history.

Press Progress detailed many recent and disturbing racist incidents in July in an article ""Meanwhile in Canada," Canadians are forgetting Canada has its own problems with racism". 

A poll released on the day of the playoff game showed that Canadians were, in fact, significantly less embracing of cultural diversity as opposed to assimilation than Americans. 68% of Canadians said immigrants needed to do more to "fit in" while only 53% of Americans felt the same way. While 47% of Americans said that our society "should encourage cultural diversity", only 32% of Canadians think that.

This should be a truly worrying statistic for those who think a racist demagogue like Trump is impossible north of the border.

So while the focus has been on the search for one hooligan, it really should be on the reality that a number of Toronto baseball fans were quick to use racist taunts against the players on an opposing baseball team, something I think most Canadians want to pretend only happens at European soccer matches.

A person tossing a projectile at a player is very bad, but easy to explain away and relatively socially inconsequential. Many people tossing hateful racist terms at players, however, is ultimately more dangerous, much less easy for those so inclined to try to write off, and a symptom of something far, far worse.

See also: Black Lives Matter is right -- The police are the oppressor

Racist Memes, Andrew Coyne, the NDP's Disaster & more! -- The Top Ten Posts and the year on The Left Chapter in review

The Left Chapter was launched as a blog at the beginning of February of this year. I wanted to start an eclectic space that presented views, analysis and opinions from a leftist perspective but that also featured recipes, art, fiction and poetry, little bits of whimsy and whatever else it seemed fun or appropriate to feature!

The first year has been a success far beyond expectations in no small part due to the contributions  of several different writers and the feedback of readers and friends.

We have had political blogs about ISIS, the mythology around Naheed Nenshi, the LCBO, the uprising in Baltimore, a call for non-violence, an open letter to Tom Mulcair and an analysis of the the strategy of the peace movement in Canada among many other topics.

There were 323 posts of various types in total!

Today we are going to look at the top ten political posts of the year in terms of hits. (Watch for the top food posts of the year before New Year's Day!)

I want to thank everyone who contributed to the blog and to our readership for such a great launch and I look forward to what 2016 brings.

1) Stop sharing the false -- and racist -- Ontario niqab driver's licence meme

Have you seen this meme circulating around Facebook and the internet the last few days?

It purports to show a woman on an Ontario driver's licence  wearing the niqab -- a religious headdress a very small number of Islamic women in Canada wear and that is being shamefully used by some politicians as a dog-whistle in the current federal election.

Read More! 

2) Reinforcing male privilege -- The Trudeau cabinet, Andrew Coyne and the mythology of "merit"

You really have to love it when the beneficiaries of the greatest social assistance program in the history of Western Civilization and Canada -- the one that did and has rewarded white men for having been born white men since the day the country was founded -- talk about "merit" to bemoan newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to make his cabinet have an equal number of men and women, thereby reflecting the actual gender composition of the country.

Read More! 

3) Delusion continues to rule the day in Mulcair NDP

By Fraser Needham

In the 2015 Canadian federal election campaign that wrapped up earlier this week, the Justin Trudeau led Liberals won a smashing 184-seat majority government.

Perhaps what is most amazing about the Liberal victory is that the party started in third place in terms of both number of seats and in the polls when the campaign began in early August.

Read More!

4) Catastrophe: The NDP lost because it deserved to

It is, ultimately, astounding how facile and false political narratives come back to haunt those who insist on their veracity.

And so it has happened with the "government-in-waiting" liberal led NDP.

Read More!

5) BC NDP posts a meme about "foreign" workers -- Xenophobes show up in approval

There is a wing of the left -- and especially within the mainstream "social democratic" party, the NDP -- that thinks that the path to power is in part paved by pandering to what are traditionally right-wing populist narratives.

Read More!

6) NDP campaign enters panic mode

By Fraser Needham

If in politics a week can be a lifetime, a month can be an eternity – especially in an election campaign.

Just put yourself in the shoes of NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s top strategists to see how much things can change over the course of four weeks. On a late August afternoon when members of the Mulcair team looked out on a bright and sunny day from the confines of the NDP war room, they must have been feeling pretty confident about themselves.

Read More!

7) Doubling down on disaster

In the wake of the catastrophic election result for the NDP -- an election that saw the party squander its position as official opposition and "government-in-waiting" and what seemed its first real shot at power -- comes news that the leader who "led" the party there, Tom Mulcair, intends to stay at the helm.

Read More!

8) The NDP's phony “credit card” analogy: a neoliberal conception of the public household

By Matt Fodor

In an attempt to shore up the NDP’s fiscal credibility, Tom Mulcair recruited Andrew Thomson, the fiscally conservative finance minister that served in the NDP provincial government of Lorne Calvert in Saskatchewan.

Read More!

9) Mulcair's NDP ran a great campaign! We know this because they say they did.

By Fraser Needham

It has now been almost three weeks since the NDP suffered a devastating loss in the 2015 federal election and the party remains shell shocked as to what exactly went wrong.

The Liberals are forging ahead on their mandate after winning the party’s first majority government in 15 years. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named his first cabinet this week with gender parity and significant minority representation. If early signs are any indication, it appears clear the Liberals intend to run a much more open and accessible government than their predecessors.

Read More!

10) Unintended consequences: Attacking Leadnow and "strategic voting"

As I have noted before, partisan political narratives often die very hard -- even when these narratives have begun to do far more harm than good to those who continue to espouse them.

One of these, increasingly, is the fixation by many New Democrat partisans on insisting that they are the only "real" "progressives" (while all the other parliamentary parties are supposedly the "same") as well as on attacking their old nemesis among progressive voters -- the Liberal Party.

Read More!

Thanks again for a great first year. See you in 2016.

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

Baltimore's uprising

As is always the case when the disenfranchised, marginalized and racialized rise up in anger in North America, where we like to think there is no need for such actions, Monday's uprising in Baltimore is being predictably portrayed in the terms that we have come to expect.

That the "rioters" are undermining all the "good" being supposedly done by peaceful protests and are "hurting their own cause", turning it into now somehow "mindless" violence and looting.

For example, the creator of "The Wire", (the famous show that looked at many of the issues facing Baltimore that have led it here) David Simon, has opined:

But now — in this moment — the anger and the selfishness and the brutality of those claiming the right to violence in Freddie Gray’s name needs to cease.  There was real power and potential in the peaceful protests that spoke in Mr. Gray’s name initially, and there was real unity at his homegoing today.  But this, now, in the streets, is an affront to that man’s memory and a dimunition of the absolute moral lesson that underlies his unnecessary death.
If you can’t seek redress and demand reform without a brick in your hand, you risk losing this moment for all of us in Baltimore.  Turn around.  Go home.  Please.

Yet, the fact is that given the increasing escalation of police militarization, brutality and racist violence across North America and the United Sates despite countless protests, and given that even the President acknowledged that the media outside of it ignored the peaceful protests in Baltimore, this desire to rise up does not come out of nothing.

Despite the hand-wringing and protestations of surprise and horror from those who are, actually, complicit in bogus narratives that seek to contain any and all radicalism, people do not riot, unless they are white sport's fans, for no reason.

We really should not be surprised, however. This emphasis and spin on uprisings is as long as their history.

Take this example:

Witnesses also reported gangs of youths, some on motorbikes, roaming the streets, looting supermarkets, shopping malls and shops on Saturday.

Some of the gangs also entered wealthy residential areas...and gunfire could be heard in the city centre as well as outlying districts.

Residents also said that banks were broken into and hundreds of young men carted away televisions, fans and stereo equipment...before setting the building alight.

The looting has prompted residents in some neighbourhoods...to set up vigilante groups to protect private property. Outside some apartment blocks, guards armed with machine guns had taken up posts....

Shocking.

But it is also about Egypt during its uprising in 2011, not Baltimore.

In fact this was, of course, the narrative of the authorities in Egypt. The uprising was the actions of violent, criminal hooligans. That this narrative was not widely accepted in North America had much to do with our assumptions about the country and our willingness to see injustice abroad that we assume does not exist at home.

Why did the Egyptian revolution occur?

The widely accepted belief is that it occurred due to police brutality and corruption, extreme inequality (the western media delighted in harping on the lack of opportunity for the Egyptian middle class), and a social inability to deal with the issues facing the Egyptian poor while plumping the bank accounts of the Egyptian upper classes.

All of which is true.

But it is all true in the USA as well. In the United States this is also greatly abetted by a terrible history and legacy of extremely violent systemic racism against a large part of its own population.

Never mind the brutality of Reaganomics and the neo-Reaganomics of Clinton, but in 2008, when the upper class friends of the Democrats and Republicans needed help, coming in their Rolls-Royce absurdity to beg that the average person bail them out for the incompetent and lazy fools that they are, suddenly, as Newsweek put it, we were "all socialists now"!

What that really meant was "socialism" for the rich alone.

The "free market" only really ever applies to those living in poverty, after all.

So what about the ongoing Baltimore uprising?

Is it the  manifestation of unreasoning violence by thugs, the disgruntled, and those who simply need, as one widely shared video has implied,  "good parenting"?

That is a good part of the way much of the media is framing it. Basically as was done in  Egypt in 2011 above.

But surely, I am certain the liberal will object, Egypt has and had much greater inequality than the USA, right?

According to the CIA the levels of inequality are, actually, greater in the US.

From Ferguson to New York the countless cases of extreme racist police brutality left unpunished and with no one held to account is also entirely analogous.

When people are pushed to the point where options for political action simply do not seem to exist, and are between a far right that despises you and a liberal political class that is fully complicit in your ongoing oppression, uprisings like the one occurring in Baltimore are an inevitable result.

I think this is worth remembering when we hear white mainstream media commentators demanding not that the police promise to end their actual violence, but that community activists disavow the supposed "violence" of those in revolt as Wolf Blitzer did when interviewing Baltimore's Deray McKesson Tuesday.

McKesson threw it back in Blitzer's face, saying:

"Yeah, there should be peaceful protests,” the community organizer replied. “And I don’t have to condone it to understand it, right? The pain that people feel is real.”
“And you are making a comparison,” McKesson added. “You are suggesting this idea that broken windows are worse than broken spines, right?”
“And what we know to be true is the police are killing people everywhere. They’re killing people here. Six police officers were involved in the killing of Freddie Gray, and we’re looking for justice there. And that’s real. The violence the police have been inflicting on communities of color has been sustained and deep.”

This is why Baltimore rises.