Memorial Day Vigil in L.A. to End Gun Violence: Where Do We Go From Here? by Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action L.A. On Memorial Day May 30, 2022, from 10am until a little past 12 noon, the Black Jewish Justice Alliance (BJJA), Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), SCLC, BEND THE ARC along with Clergy 4 Black Lives & NAACP-SFV held an Ecumenical and Interfaith community vigil to Honor the Lives [...]
Urgent Appeal to So Cal’s Civil Society and Creative Communities on Behalf of KPFK by Michael Novick I am writing as the chair of the Local Station Board, a listener member elected to the governance of KPFK, listener-sponsored, non-commercial educational Pacifica free speech community radio (90.7 in L.A., 98.7 in Santa Barbara, 93.7 in San Diego, 99.5 in Ridgecrest/China Lake, and world-wide at kpfk.org). I am writing with a simple and immediate [...]
Casualties of War: Truth, Journalism and Critical Thought by Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action LA While forces on the right loudly lament so-called cancel culture, the real censorship is coming from the corporate and even so-called progressive media and the state. Consider the recent decision by the British to allow the extradition of Julian Assange, after years of house arrest and incarceration, to stand trial in the US on charged related to his [...]
"The End and the Beginning": by Wisława Szymborska After every war someone has to clean up. Things won't straighten themselves up, after all. Someone has to push the rubble to the side of the road, so the corpse-filled wagons can pass. Someone has to get mired in scum and ashes, sofa springs, splintered glass, and bloody rags. Well-known in her native Poland, Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) received international recognition when she won [...]
“Another Life, Another Loss.” by Mumia Abu-Jamal https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/another-life-another-loss/ They came to America to escape from inter-ethnic wars in the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Central Africa. Like many refugees of war, they thought that America was the land of peace. The Lyoya family settled in Grand Rapids, MI and began living their lives as refugees have done for generations. But something as small as a traffic incident revealed the [...]
by the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council Starting in 1968, students at two public universities in California–first San Francisco State and then UC Berkeley–courageously led the way for the grassroots formation of ethnic studies by going on strike and shutting down their campuses despite police brutality and military repression. Well over half a century later, the University of California has at long last proposed an ethnic studies requirement that centers what has [...]
by Nicholas Davies On April 21st, President Biden announced new shipments of weapons to Ukraine, at a cost of $800 million to U.S. taxpayers. On April 25th, Secretaries Blinken and Austin announced over $300 million more military aid. The United States has now spent $3.7 billion on weapons for Ukraine since the Russian invasion, bringing total U.S. military aid to Ukraine since 2014 to about $6.4 billion. The top priority of Russian [...]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Americans have been shocked by the death and destruction of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, filling our screens with bombed buildings and dead bodies lying in the street. But the United States and its allies have waged war in country after country for decades, carving swathes of destruction through cities, towns and villages on a far greater scale than has so far disfigured Ukraine. As [...]
Correction and Retraction (June 28, 2022): The original text of this article when it was initially published back on April 5 indicated that USP Victorville was on a facility-wide lockdown due to a series of drug overdoses. It was also reported that prison staff were bringing drugs into the facility. This information came from outside activists and has subsequently been proven partially false. There was an overdose-related facility-wide lockdown that did take [...]
By Ajamu Baraka, Black Alliance for Peace https://blackagendareport.com/ukraine-war-and-challenge-human-rights-united-states-and-beyond Excerpt: War and Economic Deprivation: The Systemic Contradictions of the Western colonial/capitalist Project. The war being waged against global humanity by the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is a hybrid war that utilizes all the tools it has at its disposal – sanctions, mass incarceration, coups, drugs, disinformation, culture, subversion, murder, and direct military engagement to further white power. The Eurocentrism and “White Lives Matters [...]
By Theresa Brady We are entering an existential crisis. We can no longer go about business as usual. The idea that if one superpower threatens something, we should meet or exceed that threat is not going to get us out of this one. we need to find common ground. We need to find some points that would deescalate this that would be tolerable to both sides. The US has not been always on the high ground [...]
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and other Nobel Peace Prize Laureates have launched a historic call to reject war and nuclear weapons. Now they are asking Avaaz and citizens around the world to join them in protecting our planet. We reject war and nuclear weapons. We call on all our fellow citizens of the world to join us in protecting our planet, home for [...]
