Daily Archives: June 12, 2020

2020-06-12: News Headlines

The Lancet (2020-06-13). [Editorial] Medicine and medical science: Black lives must matter more. thelancet.com Emblematic of the profound sense of outrage at the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other Black men and women at the hands of law enforcement, hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets in the USA and across the globe. They set aside the risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2, judging that what they were marching for was more immediately urgent. Marches have been held to draw attention to the continued murder by police of Black people and to the persistent, pervasive racism that exists across societies.

Ramzy Baroud (2020-06-12). Palestine Bleeds: Execution of Autistic Man is Not an Exception but the Norm. counterpunch.org A 32-year-old man with the mental age of an 8-year-old child was executed by Israeli soldiers on May 30, while crouching behind his teacher near his special needs school in the Old City of Jerusalem. The cold-blooded murder of Iyad al-Hallaq might not have received much attention if it were not for the fact that

Joyce Chediac (2020-06-12). U.S. uprising against racism sparks global movement. liberationnews.org Hundreds of thousands of people in more than 60 countries have taken to the streets in a worldwide call to address racism.

Shimbun Akahata (2020-06-12). Activists in Japan join the global Black Lives Matter movement. peoplesworld.org TOKYO—In response to the Black Lives Matter movement spreading from the United States to the rest of the world, several rounds of anti-racism demonstrations in Tokyo and Osaka have seen massive turnout—even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. On June 7, the chant "Black Lives Matter" echoed throughout downtown Osaka City. The rally was …

Larry Holmes (2020-06-12). The anti-police uprising and the emergence of a vital force in the class struggle: youth. workers.org Larry Holmes gave this speech, which has been slightly edited, on a Workers World Party webinar June 4 on "No to Martial Law! Defend the Uprising!" What we've seen over the last week is the largest national uprising against the police and systemic police racism in U.S. history. That's all . . . |

T.J. Coles (2020-06-12). Infiltrating Antifa: the Feds and Their Long History of Subversion. counterpunch.org On May 31st, President Trump (or his people) tweeted: "The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization." Attorney General, William Barr, said: "The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly." Trump and Barr

Maicol David Lynch (2020-06-12). Young Communists hit the streets in New York with Black Lives Matter. peoplesworld.org NEW YORK—"How do you spell racist? NYPD!" the crowd chanted as it proceeded up Fifth Avenue towards Central Park from Washington Square Park in Manhattan. The Young Communist League Organizing Committee of New York wasted no time mobilizing its members to participate in and even lead the dozens of protests which have taken the streets …

Kim Petersen (2020-06-12). The Scourge of Islamophobia in Canada. dissidentvoice.org Muslims in Canada deserve to feel what non-Muslims feel when they hear of a vicious crime or a foiled plot committed by someone who looks like them: abhorred by the crime but knowing the crime reflects the perpetrator alone. Any other thought process should never occur. — Graeme Truelove, Un-Canadian: Islamophobia in the True North …

Jonathan Cook (2020-06-12). Don't Dismiss the Importance of Toppling a Statue. dissidentvoice.org I did not expect to be returning to this issue so soon but I was surprised, to put it mildly, to discover that my last post on anti-racists toppling a statue of the notorious slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol proved to be the most polarising article I have ever written. Given the many controversial …

PSL Connecticut (2020-06-12). New Haven is Minneapolis: Racist police terror is alive and well in Connecticut. liberationnews.org New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker is among the many political officials across Connecticut who are trying to distance themselves from the state's long history and ever present epidemic of racist police terror. On May 29, in his first statement on the wave of protests that have spread across the country following the murder of George …

Ellen Knickmeyer, Jonathan Lemire (2020-06-12). 'Welcome home party' for white supremacists—Trump picks Tulsa for comeback rally. peoplesworld.org OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—Black community and political leaders are calling on President Donald Trump to at least change the date of an Oklahoma rally kick-starting his return to public campaigning, saying that holding the event on Juneteenth, the day that marks the end of slavery in America, is a "slap in the face." Trump campaign officials …

Marjorie Cohn (2020-06-12). Trump's Illegal Use of Military Against Anti-Racist Uprisings Portends Battles Ahead. zcomm.org The backlash against Donald Trump's illegal show of military force against anti-racist protesters compelled him to withdraw the troops — for now…

Fight Back (2020-06-12). The time is now to join a revolutionary organization: Join Freedom Road Socialist Organization. fightbacknews.org If you have been out in the streets this past few weeks, the odds are good that you've been thinking about the difference between the kind of change this system has to offer, and the kind of change this country needs. Capitalism is failed system that thrives on exploitation, inequality and oppression. The reactionary and racist Trump administration has made the pandemic worse. The unfolding economic crisis we are experiencing is the worst since the 1930s. Monopoly capitalism is a dying system and we need to help finish it off. And that is exactly what Freedom Road Socialist Organization is working for. | Freedom…

Jeremy Brecher (2020-06-12). Black Lives and the Green New Deal. zcomm.org The Green New Deal may be a vehicle for building the broad movement for structural change necessary to truly make Black lives matter…

Peoples Dispatch (2020-06-12). Europe's top human rights court overturns French conviction of BDS activists. peoplesdispatch.org A French court had convicted 11 BDS activists for 'incitement to economic discrimination' after they organized a boycott protest against Israel outside a supermarket in France during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2009-10…

Prof. Kevin Jon Heller (2020-06-12). An Open Letter to the Israeli Government Condemning Annexation. globalresearch.ca Along with 102 of my fellow public international law scholars, I have signed the following open letter condemning Israel's plan to illegally annex large swathes of the West Bank. If you are interested in joining the list, please send an …

Peoples Dispatch (2020-06-12). Israeli court rejects law to legalize settlements built on private Palestinian lands. peoplesdispatch.org The Judea and Samaria law of 2017, named after the Hebrew names of occupied West Bank territory, would have given legal status to close to 4,000 Jewish settler homes in the occupied West Bank…

newsnetwork.mayoclinic (2020-06-12). The importance of self-care during difficult times. newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org If you are struggling with overwhelming feelings, added anxiety, stress and fear, you are not alone. "We are in the midst of a dual pandemic of COVID-19 and social unrest caused by racism which affects all members of our communities," says Dr. Monica Taylor-Desir, co-chair of Diversity and Inclusion in Mayo Clinic's department of Psychiatry …

Robert Koehler (2020-06-12). Globally uprooting a racist past. zcomm.org Not only have the protests against police violence gone global, but they have cut deep into Western history: into its racism and colonialism, which, until now, have remained quietly unquestioned and entrenched in our institutional "normal."

Claudia De la Cruz (2020-06-12). The people's uprising against racism in the United States. peoplesdispatch.org Why are there so many people in the United States who understand they have nothing to lose? Why are hundreds of thousands in the streets willing to risk infection and arrests, in order to join the protests?

Dean Baker (2020-06-12). Government-Granted Patent Monopolies and Structural Racism. counterpunch.org No, I have not gone off the deep end, there is an important connection that I will get to in a moment. First, I want to be clear that I am not trying to take anything away from the immediate issue that has brought hundreds of thousands into the streets, the police killing of George

Monty Neill (2020-06-12). COVID-19, Capitalist Crises, Class Resistance. counterpunch.org The Covid-19 pandemic arrived at a moment of multiple crises of the capitalist system: capital accumulation, ecology, governance, and science. The uprising following the murder of George Lloyd now accelerates the ongoing crisis of structural racism, which Covid-19 starkly illustrated. Each has a history, but as they come together now, it becomes essential to grasp

Tasnim News (2020-06-12). Zarif: Time to End Israel's Tyranny over Western Halls of Power. iranian.com Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif lashed out at the Zionist lobbies for "poisoning" US politics, saying the time has come to end Israeli influence on the Western decision-making bodies. In a post on his Twitter account on Thursday, the top Iranian diplomat pointed to an article published in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about Israel's …

Staff (2020-06-12). Uprising & Abolition: Angela Davis on Movement Building, "Defund the Police" & Where We Go from Here. democracynow.org The uprising against police brutality and anti-Black racism continues to sweep across the United States and countries around the world, forcing a reckoning in the halls of power and on the streets. The mass protests following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 have dramatically shifted public opinion on policing and systemic racism, as "defund the police" becomes a rallying cry of the movement. We discuss the historic moment with legendary scholar and activist Angela Davis. "One never knows when conditions may give rise to a conjuncture such as the current one that rapidly shifts popular…

Staff (2020-06-12). Angela Davis: Toppling of Confederate Statues Reflects Reckoning with Slavery & Historical Racism. democracynow.org The destruction and removal of racist monuments in cities across the United States during recent weeks is part of an overdue reckoning with "historical racisms that have brought us to the point where we are today," Angela Davis says. "Racism should have been immediately confronted in the aftermath of the end of slavery."

Staff (2020-06-12). Angela Davis Slams Trump Rally in Tulsa, Massacre Site, on Juneteenth Celebration of End of Slavery. democracynow.org President Trump will resume holding indoor campaign events starting with a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 19, a day known as Juneteenth, that celebrates African Americans' liberation from slavery. The rally also falls on the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa race riots, one of the worst acts of racial violence in U.S. history, in which white residents killed hundreds of their African American neighbors. Legendary scholar Angela Davis says it's important to recognize that Trump "represents a sector of a population in this country that wants to return to the past … with all of its white supremacy, with all of its…

Women's March (2020-06-12). Wednesday 6/10: Women's March: A Tough Conversation on White Womanhood & Dismantling Systemic Racism. indybay.org Online webinar…

yenisafak (2020-06-12). Israeli forces injure 3 photojournalists. yenisafak.com Three photojournalists along with dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank were injured and suffocated by the Israeli army's live and rubber bullets, and tear gas.Murad Shtaiwi, coordinator of the Popular Resistance Committees in the town of Kafr Qaddum, Qalqilya, said the Israeli forces used rubber bullets and teargas to disperse peaceful demonstrators.Shtaiwi said three photojournalists and two Palestinians were injured, while tens of protesters suffered from tear gas suffocation.People in Kafr Qaddum organize weekly protests against Israeli occupation and against the Israeli settlement activities, whic…

_____ (2020-06-12). Court of Human Rights Deals Major Blow To Israel's War On Palestine Solidarity. popularresistance.org The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled unanimously that the French highest court's 2015 criminal conviction of activists with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement advocating nonviolent boycotts of Israeli goods violated article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights. | Reacting to the breaking news, Rita Ahmad from the Palestinian-led BDS movement said: | This momentous court ruling is a decisive victory for freedom of expression, for human rights defenders, and for the BDS movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. It confirms a 2016 European U…

_____ (2020-06-12). From Occupation To 'Occupy': The Israelification Of US Domestic Security. popularresistance.org The Israelification of America's security apparatus recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel's national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg. | Hav…

CSPTES (2020-06-12). ILWU Work Action On W.C. Ports On Juneteenth STOP Police Terror & Systemic Racism. indybay.org The ILWU on the West Coast will shut down all ports on Juneteenth June 19, 2020 to stop police terror and systemic racism.

CSPTES (2020-06-12). Friday 6/19: ILWU Shutting Down W.C. Ports On Juneteenth STOP Police Terror & Systemic Racism. indybay.org SSA Terminals 1717 Middle Harbor Road at the Port of Oakland to Oscar Grant Plaza…

_____ (2020-06-12). Statues In The US and Around The World Are Being Beheaded And Torn Down. popularresistance.org "Monuments and statues in the US and around the world that are dedicated to controversial historical figures with legacies of slavery and racism have become the target of demonstrations during the #BlackLivesMatter protests. In several cases, the statues have even been toppled by activists taking matters into their owns hands. | "At a demonstration in Richmond, Virginia, on Tuesday night, a 93-year-old statue of Christopher Columbus was brought down, set on fire, and thrown into a lake as bystanders chanted 'Tear it down.' Left in place where the statue had previously stood was a cardboard sign with the words 'Co…

Collective 20 (2020-06-12). From 'Movement Moments' to Change, From the Red Summer to Black Lives Matter. zcomm.org "I think we really are on a trajectory for something different"

Eoin Higgins (2020-06-12). Black Lives Matter Movement in Seattle Occupies Six-Block "Autonomous Zone" zcomm.org "We cannot have a pacified movement."

Fight Back (2020-06-12). Milwaukee Alliance hosts rally during Cole family meeting with DA Chisholm. fightbacknews.org Milwaukee, WI – The Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression hosted a rally, June 11 to demand justice for "Thee 3" (Alvin Cole, Jay Anderson, Jr. and Antonio Gonzales) and to advance the demand for a civilian police accountability council, or CPAC. | The action took place in front of the Milwaukee County Safety Building, which is home to the office of District Attorney John Chisholm. The time and location were chosen because the family of Alvin Cole, together with their attorney, were meeting with DA Chisholm inside. Organizers with the Milwaukee Alliance assured the family that they would be o…

Gary Younge (2020-06-12). What Black America Means to Europe. zcomm.org Many have attempted to claim that `things are better here' for black people than in the US. This ignores both Europe's colonial past and its own racist present…

Faith in Action, NAACP, UNIDOS US, others (2020-06-12). Thursday 6/11: #Equity For All Forum: Racial Equity in HEROES Act & End Anti-Black Police Brutality! indybay.org Online…

SV BLM March (2020-06-12). Wednesday 6/10: Black Lives Matter March in Scotts Valley. indybay.org Meet at Siltanen Park, 127 Vine Hill School Road, Scotts Valley | March to MacDorsa Park, 1 Civic Center Drive, Scotts Valley…

Tha Hood Squad (2020-06-12). Friday 6/12: Black Lives Matter – Justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor – East Palo Alto. indybay.org Jack Farrell Park | 2509 Fordham St | East Palo Alto, CA…

Sit.Walk.Listen. and SF Sanghas (2020-06-12). Sunday 6/14: Sit. Walk. Listen. Because Black Lives Matter. indybay.org Civic Center Plaza (McAllister & Polk)…

Alex Darocy (2020-06-12). Mission Santa Cruz Spray Painted and Mission Bell Removed During Abolish Police March. indybay.org The original Mission Santa Cruz adobe and the replica mission were both spray painted yesterday during a demonstration organized in Santa Cruz in support of the abolition of police. The phrase "Fuck Your Citizenship" was painted on the Neary-Rodriguez Adobe, and the phrase "Maldita Cruz" was spray painted on two structures. The word maldita means "damned" or "cursed" in Spanish. Additionally, the word "genocide" was painted on the state park plaque, and the mission bell located in Mission Plaza Park was removed.

WSWS Repost (2020-06-12). Bakersfield, California protester dies after being run over by neo-Nazi. indybay.org There is absolutely no reason to believe the account of the police that Robert Forbes (illustrated) was killed in an accident on June 3rd, 2020.

_____ (2020-06-12). Scottish Parliament Votes For Immediate Suspension Of 'Weapons Of Oppression' Exports To US. popularresistance.org The Scottish Parliament has called for the immediate suspension of exports of riot gear, tear gas and rubber bullets to the United States, in light of the police response to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. | A successful motion, which was backed by 52 votes to 0 with 11 abstentions, says the parliament "stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and considers that the UK government must immediately suspend all export licences for tear gas, rubber bullets and riot gear to the US". | Patrick Harvie, the Green MSP who proposed the successful amendment, said the "weapons of oppression", which…

_____ (2020-06-12). Who Supplied The Weapons Used Against #BLM Protesters? popularresistance.org In response to the murder of George Floyd by a member of the Minneapolis police department on 25th May, thousands of people across the United States joined protests demanding justice for his killing, radical reform of police forces, and driving home the message that Black Lives Matter. Many of these protests face militarised police responses, including the use of rubber bullets, sting balls, stun grenades, battons, police charges, and chemical weapons like tear gas and pepper spray. | Twitter users have photographed a large number of canisters that were fired during the protest. Many appear to have been produced…

Fight Back (2020-06-11). Thousands march for Black lives in Dallas. fightbacknews.org Dallas, TX – On Saturday, June 6, about 5000 people rallied in 100-degree weather at Belo Garden Park across the street from the Earle Cabell Federal Building in downtown Dallas, to demand justice for victims of police violence, community control of the police, and the resignation of Renee Hall, the chief of the Dallas Police Department. | The protest was called by the Dallas Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (DAARPR), Progressive Student Union at the University of Texas at Arlington American Muslims for Palestine Dallas, Migrante Texas, and Black Youth Project 100-Dallas. First the crowd heard spe…

Rima Najjar (2020-06-11). Don't Call Me Ishmael; Don't Call Me Israel‚Ää—‚ÄäCall Me One Democratic State! globalresearch.ca "Who excavates Muslim Palestinian graves and mosques in [Palestine's] depopulated towns and why?", "Recently," he goes on, "these desecrations have been on the increase‚Ää—‚ÄäIn the village of Beit Jibreen, in the …

Palestinian BDS National Committee (2020-06-11). European Court of Human Rights Deals Major Blow to Israel's War on Palestine Solidarity. globalresearch.ca ECHR rules unanimously that French highest court's criminal conviction of Israel boycott advocates violates the European Convention on Human Rights' freedom of expression article | *** | The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)

RT (2020-06-11). Nigel Farage LOSES his LBC radio show after comparing BLM to Taliban. rt.com Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage's contract with LBC has been abruptly terminated, the UK radio station confirmed. The move comes after he compared Black Lives Matter protesters to the Taliban, over their attacks on monuments. | The decision was announced by LBC on Thursday in a short statement, but the station did not give any particular reason for the sudden move. | "Nigel Farage's contract with LBC is up very shortly and, following discussions with him, Nigel is stepping down from LBC with immediate effect. We thank Nigel for the enormous contribution he has made to LBC and wish him well," the station said.

Mark Gruenberg (2020-06-11). AFL-CIO recommends actions to end police racism. peoplesworld.org WASHINGTON —In a comprehensive statement, the AFL-CIO General Board — heads of all its member unions — recommitted the labor movement to working towards implementing wide-ranging recommendations to attack systematic 401-year-old U.S. racism, notably including police racism. Those recommendations came from both the federation's own race commission after the previous notorious police murder, of Michael …