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2021-12-31 18:58:01+00:00
Marx to Engels, 1861.
#HappyNewYear
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2021-12-31 15:57:01+00:00
Biden’s presidency has been a series of lies, broken promises, and fumbling failures.
These are just a few of the biggest flops of Biden’s first year in office.
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2021-12-31 14:36:19+00:00
By March 2022, G7 countries will have 1.4 billion surplus doses, even after giving all adults a booster shot.
At the current rate of delivery by vaccine manufacturers, it won’t be until April 2023 that everyone in Africa will receive their first dose.
Find out more about vaccine inequality: https://bit.ly/3EJz7b9
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2021-12-31 12:55:29+00:00
The EU, UK, and the US received more vaccines in the run-up to Christmas than all African countries combined did in all of 2021.
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2021-12-30 20:42:03+00:00
Elon Musk made a total of $122 billion in 2021. By contrast, an individual from the poorest half of the global income distribution made $3,920 all year, according to the World Inequality Report 2022.
Far from being the “self-made billionaire” his sycophantic followers make him out to be, Elon Musk’s extreme wealth was made possible by the massive inheritance of his father’s emerald mining empire in apartheid South Africa.
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2021-12-30 16:44:58+00:00
At least 4,470 refugees and asylum seekers lost their lives making dangerous journeys to secure a better life in 2021.
Meanwhile, Europe continued to fortify its borders, and migrants were met with illegal pushbacks.
The U.S. told migrants to “not come.”
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2021-12-30 14:25:26+00:00
As the pandemic threw some 100 million people into poverty this year, the wealthy only got wealthier. We take a look at some of the astronomical gains the top billionaires made throughout the global pandemic.
Find more here: https://bit.ly/3FGJmhD
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2021-12-30 12:10:16+00:00
South Korean delivery workers are going on strike for the 4th time this year. Many are members of a union affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, demanding better pay and working conditions.
Workers at the CJ Logistics Corp, which holds around 50% of market shares for South Korea’s delivery sector, mobilized after company officials reported the deaths of 16 employees in 2020.
Following the deaths, the company hiked delivery charges claiming it will reflect the increase in wages. However, workers at CJ say they are not being compensated fairly and that the increased rates are not being distributed amongst them.
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2021-12-29 19:08:48+00:00
On this day in 1890, the United States Army killed nearly 300 Lakota people. The perpetrating soldiers were awarded Medals of Honor, the country’s highest military honor.
Read more about the Wounded Knee Massacre: https://bit.ly/3sJZEma
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2021-12-29 16:17:36+00:00
And the best act of resistance award for 2021 goes to…
Find out how the 6 Palestinian prisoners escaped one of Israel’s most secure jails: https://bit.ly/3Hiakwo
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2021-12-29 13:08:58+00:00
Israeli occupational forces demolished a Palestinian house south of Hebron in the Occupied West Bank.
Israel carries out such demolitions on an almost daily basis. In 2021 alone, Israel demolished at least 619 homes, leaving 560 Palestinians homeless, including 302 minors.
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2021-12-29 10:11:47+00:00
French people were not so kind to President Emmanuel Macron in 2021.
The French president hopes of winning a second term but faces growing opposition, with the latest opinion polls showing a disapproval rate of 57%.
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2021-12-28 18:56:01+00:00
From resisting colonial occupations and racial inequality, from climate justice to land rights, from farmers rights to putting an end to gender-based violence, women were at the forefront of all kinds of struggles in 2021.
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2021-12-28 15:57:01+00:00
2021 was on fire. Literally.
The stakes could not be any higher for the future of the planet. As forests burned down, world leaders’ promises at the climate summit this year rang hollow.
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2021-12-28 12:56:19+00:00
And the hero of the year award goes to…
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2021-12-28 10:21:51+00:00
On December 28, 2011, two F-16 Fighting Falcons of the Turkish Air Force bombed a caravan of border traders in the northern Kurdish province of Şırnak.
The majority of them were under 18, all civilians. Only four people survived the attack, but all sustained serious injuries.
No one has been held accountable for the massacre. Massive protests across Turkey followed the attacks, but protesters faced police repression with batons and teargas.
Two relatives of the victims have been imprisoned. A total of 16 people from the village of Roboski are currently on trial, accused of “attending a memorial service for their relatives.”
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2021-12-28 09:46:04+00:00
2021 was business as usual for the U.S. war machine…
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2021-12-27 15:52:14+00:00
2021 saw states significantly ramping up their anti-migration policies. Here are 5 anti-refugee border walls that were built this year.
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2021-12-27 13:08:54+00:00
How was 2021 for Palestinians? We take a look at the injustices suffered by the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli occupation this year.
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2021-12-26 15:58:01+00:00
On this day 159 years ago, the U.S. carried out the largest single-day mass execution in its history when Abraham Lincoln ordered the killing of 38 Dakota Nation members.
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2021-12-25 18:57:01+00:00
On this day 190 years ago, the eleven-day Christmas Rebellion began in Jamaica when 60,000-300,000 enslaved Jamaicans revolted against the British Empire for their freedom.
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2021-12-25 15:56:01+00:00
No Christmas presents for Palestinian children this year as 2021 becomes the deadliest since 2014.
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2021-12-25 11:55:05+00:00
For an entire year, Indian farmers led one of the largest protests in history, in what has been called “India’s biggest mobilization since independence.”
Fighting against the corporatization of agriculture, farmers used a range of protest tactics, including staging road blockades, obstructing railways, shutting down economic activities, digging symbolic graves, writing hundreds of postcards, and uniting 250 million people for a general strike.
They faced brutal police force, water cannons, tear gas, internet shutdowns, trenches, lawsuits, and right-wing media vilification that painted them as traitors, anti-nationals, and even terrorists.
They remained vigilant in their tents through the harsh winter, the scorching summer heatwave, and the COVID-19 surge.
A year later, Prime Minister Modi conceded to farmers’ demands and repealed a set of 3 agricultural laws that favor big corporations and the agribusiness sector at the expense of small farmers.
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2021-12-24 19:02:42+00:00
From anarchists like Dorothy Day to Latin American leaders, liberation theology has a long tradition of incorporating ideals of the faith into social and political activism.
While the Church has historically acted at the behest of European colonialism, enslaving natives, pillaging gold and destroying other faiths, these are some of the characters who have tried to separate the spiritual principles of the religion from the horrors of the past within a liberation theology framework.
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2021-12-24 15:57:22+00:00
“Jesus Christ could be just about any color, but the one color he definitely could not be, is white!”
Kwame Ture on how European imperialism created “White Jesus.”
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2021-12-24 12:28:41+00:00
This is how Palestinians are forced to spend the holiday season after the Israeli military blocked entrances to the village of Burqa in the occupied West Bank to secure a rally by some 7,000 Israeli settlers at the illegal Homesh settler outpost.
At least 15 Palestinians were wounded by rubber-coated steel bullets fired by the Israeli army, as soldiers chased them through the village.
Tear gas canisters were thrown at civilian homes in the village. Several Palestinians’ homes were also taken over by Israeli forces to be used as military posts to “monitor the protesters” resisting the settlers.
The thousands of Israelis settlers, which included rabbis and high-ranking political and settler movement individuals, marched to the Homesh settlement after the Knesset turned down a proposal to legalize it this week.
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2021-12-23 21:19:21+00:00
Leaders and activists marched through the streets of Buenos Aires with torches, pan-indigenous wiphala flags, and posters to the Plaza de Mayo where they had set camp in summer, demanding Milagro Sala’s freedom.
Sala, an Indigenous leader of the Túpac Amaru movement, was detained in 2016 in Jujuy. She was accused of instigating riots against the provincial governor, Gerardo Morales, a close ally of former right-wing President Mauricio Macri, and was sentenced to 13 years.
The Túpac Amaru Neighborhood Organization is a social organization and political party whose ideology is centered around historical figures such as Túpac Amaru II, leader of the native uprising against the Spanish in Peru, Che Guevara, and Eva Perón, pro-labor rights and women’s suffrage First Lady of Argentina. The movement, which claims some 150,000 members, offers social services such as housing, health, and education.
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2021-12-23 19:38:36+00:00
Minneapolis cop Kimberly Potter was just found guilty of both charges of manslaughter in the 1st and 2nd degree for shooting and killing 20-year-old Daunte Wright.
Potter says she mistook her Glock pistol for her Taser. Did she?
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2021-12-23 17:41:34+00:00
Amazon workers continue the struggle to organize a union against inhumane and murderous working conditions.
After their petition to vote for a union at the Staten Island warehouse was withdrawn last month for “needing wider support,” organizers held a rally at Times Square and refiled another union petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
6 Amazon workers who were required to work through a major tornado died at an Illinois warehouse earlier this month.
The Staten Island warehouse workers persist in their unionizing efforts amid a series of union-busting setbacks, super-exploitation and overwork in the run-up to the holiday season, and lack of COVID-19 worker protections.
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2021-12-23 14:20:19+00:00
A nearly all-white jury is deliberating whether the Minneapolis cop who fatally shot 20-year-old Daunte Wright will be convicted.
Police officer Kim Potter faces manslaughter charges for shooting and killing Wright in his car in Minneapolis last April – during the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis cop who murdered George Floyd.
It is extremely rare for cops in the U.S. to face any charges for killing someone while on duty.
Potter insists on the absurd excuse that she mistook a taser for a Glock pistol.
Protesters showed up outside the courthouse as the jury wrapped their third day of deliberations.
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2021-12-22 19:48:46+00:00
Crushed by record-high unemployment, inflation, and hunger, Brazilians took to the streets to fight these cruel economic conditions.
In Bolsonaro’s Brazil, nearly 15% of the workforce is without a job. Some 19 million Brazilians will go hungry this holiday season, and 116 million continue to live with some level of food insecurity.
Inflation rates are skyrocketing–the Consumer Price Index recorded an inflation high of 10.74% in 2021, the highest record since 2003, when inflation hit 11.02%.
Demonstrations took place in Heliópolis, the largest favela in São Paulo, and across 12 other cities in Brazil to resist their government’s criminal disregard for their livelihoods.
The protesters carried beef bones and pots, representing the return of hunger to Brazil, as people can no longer afford to buy actual meat and nowadays resort to making bone stew instead.
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2021-12-22 16:07:09+00:00
Before the U.S. “withdrew” from Afghanistan, it killed 10 civilians –including 7 children– in a drone strike.
The Pentagon now says no involved military personnel will be punished, and relatives of the victims say the U.S. has offered them nothing so far.
A trove of leaked documents recently shared by the NYT revealed that U.S. strikes have resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, often without any disciplinary action taken.
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2021-12-21 21:55:13+00:00
Argentinians remembered the 20th anniversary of the mass social uprisings against IMF austerity economics that shook the country.
In December 2001, Argentinians revolted against president Fernando de la Rúa when the International Monetary Fund-mandated budget cut of $7 billion threatened to plunge more people into poverty and unemployment.
Resisting these neoliberal policies, Argentinians flooded Plaza de Mayo in protest, and de la Rúa declared a state of siege, unleashing violent police repression on the protesters that killed 39 people.
Argentinians took to the streets of Buenos Aires to commemorate the lives lost protesting against cruel IMF austerity, and continue their struggle.
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2021-12-21 17:09:27+00:00
Housing rights activists welcomed with a protest the new mayor of Berlin Franziska Giffey (SPD).
The grassroots campaign “Deutsche Wohnen Enteignen,” which calls for the expropriation of real estate companies, staged the protest just before she was elected at the House of Representatives of Berlin. With the slogan “Implement the Referendum,” the protesters called on Giffey and the re-elected social-democratic-green-left coalition to take seriously the more than one million Berliners who voted in favor of socializing real estate companies.
The campaign had managed to collect 360,000 signatures to force the referendum on the expropriation of private real estate companies that own more than 3,000 housing units. Back in September, a majority of voters – 59,1% in favor – voted in support of the city expropriating key private real estate companies such as Deutsche Wohnen and Vonovia. The result was a whopping victory for Berliners fighting against skyrocketing rents and lack of living space.
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2021-12-21 12:39:17+00:00
A racist new draft bill could give the U.K. the authority to revoke citizenship from millions of its ethnic minority residents without notice.
The anti-immigrant Nationality and Borders Bill also seeks to criminalize asylum seekers arriving in the U.K. by non-conventional means.
Human rights lawyers say the bill represents “the biggest legal assault on international refugee law ever seen in the UK,” and have warned that it would establish the British equivalent of the Guantanamo Bay detention centers used by the U.S.
Londoners took to the streets to condemn the House of Commons vote of approval for the bill.
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2021-12-20 21:19:20+00:00
Only 2 months ago, several bags with human remains were exhumed from a mass grave in Panama. The remains were found in the same bags that U.S. soldiers distributed for burials.
The invasion remains an open wound for Panamanians who continue to commemorate the tragedy each year.
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2021-12-20 21:18:55+00:00
By the mid-1980s, Noriega’s relationship with the U.S. began to deteriorate. Public discontent had grown among Panamanians, and Noriega appeared to be shifting his support. The U.S. could not tolerate an erratic ally, and Bush senior was determined to oust his former drug-trafficking partner.
The U.S. military used Panama as a testing ground; it saw the first combat deployment of Apache helicopters, F-117 stealth aircraft, and Humvees. A year later, they would be used in the Gulf War.
In the first 12 hours of the U.S. invasion, at least 442 bombs were dropped on the heavily populated El Chorrillo neighborhood in downtown Panama City; one bomb blast every 1.6 minutes. Some residents began referring to El Chorrillo as “little Hiroshima.”
The UN put the number of civilian casualties at 500, but the Central American Human Rights Commission estimated that 2,000–3,000 were killed. Bulldozers excavated mass graves and threw in the bodies.
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2021-12-20 21:18:19+00:00
On this day in 1989, U.S. President George H. W. Bush ordered some 27,000 troops to invade Panama, killing hundreds of civilians and displacing thousands.
Under ‘Operation Just Cause,’ Bush wanted to topple Panama’s de facto ruler Manuel Noriega.
Noriega was a former CIA agent who attended the U.S. Army’s “School of the Americas,” a training camp that focused on delivering “anti-communist counterinsurgency” training.
In 1971, Noriega was placed on the CIA’s payroll and was considered a valuable asset for his role in providing intelligence against the Cuban government. By 1979, the U.S. was jointly managing the Panama Canal Zone.
Within a few years, Noriega would act as a conduit for U.S. support to the Contras in Nicaragua, supplying funds and weapons in the war against the Sandinista government.
In exchange for these services, the U.S. ignored Noriega’s use of weapons-shipment networks to smuggle drugs into the U.S.
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2021-12-20 16:40:01+00:00
The U.S. military increased its annual budget by nearly $25 billion–the amount of money it would cost to vaccinate the world.
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2021-12-20 14:41:27+00:00
Homeless activists in Berlin occupied a 5-apartment house in the city center on the weekend. More than 200 supporters gathered outside the building and heavy police forces appeared instantly. After negotiations with the district mayor, Stephan von Dassel (Green party), and the landlord Arcadia Estates, the activists won the right to live in the house.
This is a historic decision: the district confiscated the vacant building and offered it to the homeless activists because it was empty for too long. According to the activists, this agreement sets a legal precedent that could augment pressure on politicians to confiscate more empty buildings in Berlin. These buildings are purposefully left vacant as a speculation strategy by real estate corporations.
Between 2017 and 2019, only 27,000 apartments were completed by private developers. The housing shortage in Berlin reached 86,000 apartments in 2020, while up to 8,000 people continue to live on the streets.
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2021-12-19 19:56:01+00:00
Migrants traveling by caravan through Mexico reject the criminal disregard for their plight as they move north to the U.S. to seek asylum.
In Mexico City, hundreds of migrants from Haiti and Central America took part in a protest to condemn Mexico’s immigration policies that effectively treat asylum seekers like criminals.
Exhausted from months of stalled progress obtaining the legal means for asylum, migrants demand more humane immigration policies from President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government, including the end to police repression.
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2021-12-19 15:49:01+00:00
Chileans are headed to the polls today to vote for their next president in a pivotal elections round that could bring back neoliberalism to Chile.
Chile has been engulfed with a series of protests demanding social justice and the replacement of Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution for the past 2 years.
But far-right candidate José Antonio Kast has won the first round of the presidential elections in November. Kast is an open admirer of Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator who came to power in a U.S.-sponsored military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende and introduced neoliberalism to Chile.
Watch our interview with journalist Pablo Navarrete on what’s at stake today: https://bit.ly/3sgCG5J
And our documentary Chile Awakens: The End Of The Neoliberal “Miracle”: https://bit.ly/3e1Xfur
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2021-12-19 10:54:01+00:00
As the Turkish Lira continues to reach record lows against the dollar, labor unions and worker groups are demanding sufficient government action that responds to the rapid evisceration of their purchasing power and savings.
The lira lost as much as 8% of its value against the U.S. dollar this week, and more than half of its value this year, after the central bank reduced its interest rates under pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Despite announcing a 50% increase to the minimum wage next year, workers deem the move as unsatisfactory, considering that their minimum wage has dropped from $380 to $185 this year, and inflation is expected to continue rising next year.
“In a situation where the daily cost of living doubled in a month, it was presented as if this wage would also please the workers, without any updates to the workers’ demands,” said one protester.
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2021-12-18 19:57:01+00:00
The Guarani Indigenous people of São Paulo are one step closer to securing continued legal protections for their tribal lands and heritage through official public policy.
The Guarani people have authored a Green Belt Bill that will strengthen their efforts to protect their lands from deforestation and real estate speculation – particularly the Atlantic Forest, which has lost seven million square meters in the last five years.
The passage of the bill is a significant feat in the struggle to conserve Guarani cultural knowledge and restorative land practices, including official recognition of the Guarani Mbya as a co-official language in São Paulo.
Guarani people gathered outside the District Council office as the Green Belt Bill progressed through the first round of municipal voting.
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2021-12-18 15:56:01+00:00
The Mapuche Indigenous struggle is at a critical moment as Chile votes for its next president tomorrow.
Far-right candidate José Antonio Kast has vowed to label the Mapuche resistance as terrorist.
Check out our documentary “Chile: From Dictatorship to Democracy”: https://bit.ly/327pDst
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2021-12-18 14:37:58+00:00
[ LIVE] Anti-racist activists and representatives from over 200 organizations hit the streets of Paris to mark International Migrants Day.
https://youtu.be/7NJ7BWk658Q
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2021-12-18 10:56:01+00:00
Labor unions in Greece are resisting the government’s 2022 anti-worker budget.
Multiple bailouts by the IMF and Eurozone countries when Greece was on the verge of bankruptcy between 2010-2018 have led to frequent salary and pension cutbacks.
Around 2,000 protesters gathered outside the Parliamentary building in Athens as lawmakers debated the next year’s budgets, demanding a return to wage levels before the international bailouts.
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2021-12-17 20:53:00+00:00
Government buildings are up in flames as environmental groups in Argentina resist more mega-mining destruction.
Under the banner “Mega-mining = Death,” protesters mobilized to demand the governor veto a destructive mining project he recently approved in the province of Chubut.
Environmental defenders clashed heavily with police, facing rubber bullets and intense police repression for defending their community from more land exploitation by Canadian mining barons.
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2021-12-17 17:54:01+00:00
The widow of the brutal fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet is dead, and the streets of Santiago are filled with joy.
Chileans are celebrating Lucia Hiriart’s death as an important symbolic moment for the country’s struggle against fascism, especially as far-right politicians seek to rehabilitate Pinochet’s bloody legacy.
Chile’s presidential elections are just two days away, and front-runner José Antonio Kast has expressed admiration for Pinochet’s fascist regime.
Pinochet overthrew Chile’s first socialist president Salvador Allende in a coup in 1973, which ushered in an era of mass murder. Thousands of Chileans were killed, tortured, and disappeared in 17-years of Pinochet’s rule.
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2021-12-17 15:27:17+00:00
The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution condemning Nazism, neo-Nazism, and all forms of racism. The U.S. and Ukraine were again the only countries to vote against it.
49 countries, mainly U.S. allies –including Germany and the UK– abstained, while the rest of the world (130 countries) voted in favor.
Sponsored by more than 30 nations, the resolution expresses concern about any form of glorifying Nazism, including putting up monuments and holding public parades honoring the Waffen SS – combat units within Nazi Germany’s military – or declaring them ‘national liberation movements.’
Last year, the U.S.’ mission to the United Nations defended in a statement “the constitutional right to freedom of speech and the rights of peaceful assembly and association, including by avowed Nazis, whose hatred and xenophobia are widely scorned by the American people.”
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2021-12-17 10:34:00+00:00
On this day in 1928, Indian socialist revolutionary Bhagat Singh and his comrades Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru killed British colonizer and police officer James Saunders in Lahore, Punjab, becoming folk heroes for the struggle against British imperialism.
They shot and killed Saunders to avenge nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai’s death at the hands of the British colonial police. Singh had mistaken Saunders for the British police superintendent, James Scott, whom they had intended to assassinate because they thought he was responsible for the death of Rai, leader of a march against British colonialism that was heavily repressed by the British authorities. Rai reportedly died from a heart attack related to injuries sustained from the repression.
On March 23, 1931, the three revolutionaries were hanged; they seemingly chanted “Down with British Imperialism” while marching towards the gallows. They became the most revered figures in the Indian struggle for freedom against the British empire.
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2021-12-16 20:46:20+00:00
For scab-free solidarity snacking, supporters of the Kellogg’s workers’ strike recommend this cheese cracker recipe.
After Kellogg’s threatened to replace all 1,400 hourly workers who have been on strike since October, people have banded together for a wholesale boycott of Kellogg’s exploitation-laced products, in favor of homemade alternatives.
Workers have vowed to continue striking until Kellogg’s agrees to abolish the two-tier pay structure, which excludes new employees from equal compensation and benefits for equal work.
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2021-12-16 20:07:17+00:00
Is the far right returning to Chile?
José Antonio Kast’s slim victory in the first round of Chile’s presidential elections shocked many, considering that the Latin American country has been engulfed with a series of protests demanding social justice and the replacement of Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution for the past 2 years.
As Chileans head to the polls on Sunday in the elections run-off, we speak to journalist Pablo Navarrete about what’s at stake in this decisive moment for Chile.
https://youtu.be/GsblSwQzEFU
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2021-12-16 10:52:51+00:00
Two labor unions in Italy that have a combined membership of more than 7.5 million people are on an 8-hour long general strike today to protest the economic policies set out in the Mario Draghi government’s 2022 Budget Law.
The general strike marks the largest confrontation with the ex-banker Prime Minister ever since he assumed office in February. Draghi previously served as President of the European Central Bank and as Governor of the Bank of Italy.
The CGIL (Italian General Confederation of Labor) and the UIL (Italian Labor Union) say that the announced budget is unsatisfactory, as it includes an expected €8 billion of tax cuts favoring higher earners.
The unions are demanding a reevaluation of the budget, particularly when it comes to “taxation, pensions, schools, industrial policies, combating relocations, and combating job insecurity, especially for young people and women, and the non-self-sufficient,” according to a CGIL statement.
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2021-12-15 21:58:02+00:00
Today would have been the 77th birthday of Brazilian labor leader, socialist and conservationist, Francisco “Chico” Mendes.
A sworn enemy of the landowners, Mendes was the leader of the local union of rubber tappers, an active member of the growing Workers’ Party, and an advocate of socialist ecology. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest and promoted the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples.
Mendes realized that in order to secure the future of the Amazon, they had to find a way to secure workers’ rights while preserving the forest. Ultimately, the concept of “extractive reserves” was envisaged, which meant that “the land [would be] under public ownership, but the rubber tappers and other workers should have the right to live and work there.”
Today, deforestation and fire in the Amazon have risen to their highest levels in more than a decade since far-right President Bolsonaro took power in 2019.
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2021-12-15 19:19:34+00:00
bell hooks, renowned author and pioneer of Black feminist theory, has passed away today at age 69.
bell hooks was deeply critical of the mainstream feminism of her day, which centered white women while excluding the perspectives and struggles of Black and non-white people.
Through her many published works, including All About Love and Ain’t I a Woman, hooks powerfully criticized racist feminism, and examined Black womanhood, which is shaped by intersecting oppressions of racism and sexism.
hooks is celebrated around the world for providing a framework for Black and queer women to understand their own oppression and path to liberation.
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2021-12-15 15:43:09+00:00
On this day in 1890, legendary Lakota Sioux chief Sitting Bull was killed by U.S. government agents.
Sitting Bull was the political Native American leader who united the Sioux tribes against the white settlers taking their tribal land.
In 1868, 25 tribal leaders signed the Fort Laramie Treaty with the U.S. government, which created the Great Sioux Reservation. But Sitting Bull refused to surrender.
Sitting Bull’s anti-treaty stance won him many followers. Upon the discovery of gold within the boundaries of the Great Sioux Reservation in 1874, the U.S. government reneged on the treaty and began to remove native tribes from their land by force.
The ensuing Great Sioux Wars culminated in the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn, when Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse led united tribes to victory against General George Armstrong Custer.
Sitting Bull was shot and killed by U.S.-hired Indian police officers on Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 1890, but is still remembered as a leader who fought for his people’s land.
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2021-12-14 16:15:06+00:00
“This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog.”
On this day in 2008, Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoe at U.S. President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, in protest of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the countless atrocities committed against the Iraqi people.
Al-Zaidi’s act inspired many people around the world to raise their shoes at Bush in protest of his foreign policy.
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2021-12-14 12:20:48+00:00
Is nuclear really a ‘green’ alternative?
Macron seems to think so, but these environmental activists protesting outside the Quai d’Orsay in Paris today strongly disagree.
France is taking on the rotating presidency of the European Union in January, and wants to see nuclear power classified as “sustainable energy” in the European Union’s new taxonomy system that defines sustainable investment.
Nuclear accounts for almost 75% of France’s power production, and nuclear power is at the heart of Macron’s France 2030 plan for re-industrialization which was announced in October. Macron seeks to keep France’s struggling nuclear power industry alive with contracts for new nuclear reactors.
Environmental opposition accuses the industry of greenwashing nuclear energy, which although does not emit carbon dioxide, still carries the risk of accidents and the trouble of long-lived nuclear waste. Environmental activists also point to the energy-intensive mining and enrichment of uranium operations that emit carbon.
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2021-12-13 20:50:52+00:00
The people of Argentina gave a loud and resounding NO against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its neoliberal economic plundering of the country.
The Argentinian government is currently negotiating to restructure its repayment plan to the IMF for the $44 billion it borrowed in 2018—the largest IMF loan in history.
Protesters in Buenos Aires have denounced the current deal, which asks Argentina to repay $38 billion over the next two years—a steep amount that’s guaranteed to precipitate an economic meltdown.
Argentinians are resisting the IMF’s parasitic proposal, as it signals another wave of cruel austerity measures—cuts to public works, pensions, and social spending—that will only increase inflation and poverty in the country.
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2021-12-13 16:37:56+00:00
Happy 1312!
(Photos from Mexico City, France, Colombia, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Melbourne, Turin, Slovakia, Santiago, Netherlands, via IG/radicalgraffiti)
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2021-12-12 15:59:02+00:00
At least 54 migrants died in a horrific truck accident in the Mexican state of Chiapas.
The trailer was carrying nearly 200 migrants from Central America, and flipped over and crashed after the truck tried to turn a corner too fast, leaving over 100 people with serious injuries.
This is one of the deadliest migrant accidents to ever occur, and comes shortly after the tragic death of 27 migrants who drowned in a boat accident on the English Channel last month.
This tragedy is a devastating reminder of the plight of migrants around the world, who are forced into extremely dangerous situations en route to countries like the U.S. and UK, that refuse to provide options for safer passage while hyper-militarizing their borders.
Over 3,500 deaths have been documented on the United States-Mexico border since 2014.
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2021-12-12 11:51:01+00:00
Chile has legalized same-sex marriage for the first time in history.
The forward motion was made possible by the LGBTQ+ supporters who fought for years to push the 2017 marriage equality law through Congress, which they have finally approved.
The law recognizes the equality of marriage ties between people of all genders, which includes the right to adopt children, spousal benefits, and recognition of parental ties.
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2021-12-11 18:53:02+00:00
Details of a criminal human-trafficking operation in Georgia state reveal that Mexican and Central American migrants were exploited on an onion farm for years, where they were abused and forced into unpaid labor and gunpoint.
The crime ring that bought and sold unpaid migrant labor made $200 million in stolen wages.
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2021-12-11 15:57:01+00:00
As the trial for Ghislaine Maxwell began in New York this week, we take a look at the rich and powerful men lurking in the shadows of Jeffrey Epstein’s heinous child sex-trafficking operation, who will likely never see a day in court.
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2021-12-11 10:58:02+00:00
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, one of the worst massacres in modern Latin American history for which no one has yet been held accountable.
In 1981, between December 11 and 13, a U.S.-trained right-wing death squad massacred nearly all of the people of the Salvadoran village El Mozote, accused of aiding leftist guerillas in El Salvador’s bloody civil war. Over 1,000 people were brutally murdered, the majority of whom were women, children, and the elderly.
Soldiers separated the men from the women and children, then they tortured and executed the men in several locations. They took the women and older girls, separated them from the children, and executed them with machine guns after raping them. Girls as young as 10 were raped. They killed the children by slitting their throats and by hanging them from trees. After killing almost the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the houses.
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2021-12-10 21:57:01+00:00
The U.S. is holding a “Summit for Democracy” today, a first-of-its-kind gathering led by Joe Biden to “safeguard rights and freedoms” around the world. Here is a running list of some countries where the U.S. has spread its democracy.
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2021-12-10 19:59:01+00:00
Today is International Human Rights Day, and the U.S. Senate gave a bipartisan vote of confidence to the Biden administration’s proposed $650 million weapons sale to Saudi Arabia this week.
One child has died every 9 minutes this year as a result of Saudi Arabia’s ongoing siege on Yemen, creating the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
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2021-12-10 18:11:10+00:00
“Today is International Human Rights Day. What a shame!”
Britain’s High Court ruled in favor of the U.S. in its case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today, making him one step closer to being extradited from a British prison to the U.S.
Earlier this year, a British judge had ruled that Assange might commit suicide if sent to the U.S. to face charges.
Today’s ruling, which overturns the previous decision, means Assange could face 175 years in prison over several charges under the Espionage Act for one of the biggest ever leaks of classified information detailing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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2021-12-09 21:35:49+00:00
The trial for the cop who shot Daunte Wright has commenced this week in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Former police officer Kimberly Potter faces manslaughter charges for fatally shooting Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, during a traffic stop last April.
Potter is using the bogus excuse that she mistook her handgun for her taser.
Daunte Wright’s murder at the hands of the Minneapolis police forces follows the infamous murder of George Floyd by the same police force, which sparked an uprising against anti-Black police terror around the globe.
In the year following uprisings, Minneapolis police have not relented on their acts of terror against the Black community.
Just last month, Minneapolis voters struck down a ballot measure that would have dissolved the police department.
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2021-12-09 16:04:08+00:00
Israel is hosting the Miss Universe beauty pageant this year, and contestants are being accused of appropriating Palestinian culture while promoting it as part of an Israeli touristic experience.
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2021-12-08 20:56:02+00:00
A Minneapolis cop slammed a 64-year-old Black man to the ground and arrested him with no cause.
Bystanders were outraged as they watched the cop violently escalate a non-violent confrontation at a grocery store.
Black people in Minneapolis are 7 times more likely to be brutalized by cops than white people.
Minneapolis police, who are known and condemned on the world stage for the murder of George Floyd, continue to occupy and terrorize the Black community completely unfettered.
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2021-12-08 16:02:11+00:00
Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
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2021-12-08 12:50:34+00:00
On this day in 1987, a popular uprising known as the First Intifada broke out as Palestinians rose up against the violence and abuse suffered under Israeli military occupation and to resist Israel’s encroaching settler-colonialism.
The First Intifada was sparked after an Israeli truck driver rammed through a crowd of Palestinian workers returning to the Gaza Strip, killing four people.
Palestinians brought their rejection of Israel’s brutal and repressive military rule to international attention by carrying out an uprising of collective and unified actions as popular committees and responses emerged.
As part of the resistance, Palestinians undertook peaceful demonstrations, threw rocks at soldiers and tanks, engaged in civil disobedience, tax revolts and commercial strikes, among other actions coordinated by grassroots committees.
Israel responded with brutal force as unarmed Palestinians were met with fully equipped Israeli soldiers who used live ammunition indiscriminately on the streets. Reportedly,
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2021-12-07 17:45:46+00:00
Brazilian feminists are leading the call for the removal of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, whose dangerous policies they say have disenfranchised Black and Indigenous women the most.
Bolsonaro’s administration has implemented a neoliberal agenda that worsened the position of Black and Indigenous women in Brazil, dismantling social services that were put in place to fight against femicide, poverty and inequality.
These policies are seen as a direct attack on already-marginalized women, whose rights to a job, daycare for children, decent housing, and services essential for their free and equal participation in society have been gutted.
Jair Bolsonaro is responsible for the deaths of over 615,000 Brazilians since the start of the pandemic, and he is currently being investigated for committing crimes against humanity by disseminating fake news about COVID-19.
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2021-12-07 11:54:58+00:00
Streets were set on fire in Thessaloniki on the anniversary of the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos, the 15-year-old kid who was killed by Greek police in the Exarchia district of Athens in 2008.
Flares were seen burning and dumpsters toppled following the protest, with local police seen trying to clear the streets.
Grigoropoulos’ murder unleashed widespread Greek anger over many issues like police abuse of protesters, neoliberal education reforms, and corruption of the right-wing government, with people protesting and rioting in the streets for several weeks.
His death anniversary is marked every year across the country.
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2021-12-07 10:38:52+00:00
isten to Haitian student movement leader Wisevel Mondelice, talk about the links between gangs, Haitian elites and foreign powers.
“Haiti is not a shithole of the United States of America; Haiti is not the trash dump of America; Haiti is sovereign, there are people in the country that have the ability to guide and re-orientate the policy of the country”.
#Haiti #Ayiti #sovereignty
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2021-12-06 23:05:02+00:00
Today we remember the Afro-Caribbean anti-colonial revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, who passed away on this day in 1961.
Fanon was not only an important theorist, psychiatrist and political philosopher, he also engaged in armed liberation struggles, first serving in Europe during WWII against the fascists and later in the Algerian War of Independence against French colonizers.
His works like Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth with critical insights on racism, colonialism and anti-colonial struggle have inspired decolonization movements and revolutionaries across the world.
“Colonialism is violence in its natural state and it will only yield when confronted with greater violence.”
“The people come to understand that wealth is not the fruit of labor but the result of organized, protected robbery. Rich people are no longer respectable people; they are nothing more than flesh-eating animals, jackals and vultures which wallow in the people’s blood.”
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2021-12-06 22:09:07+00:00
On the anniversary of his death, we remember the legacy of B.R. Ambedkar, one of India’s foremost leaders in the anti-caste movement who ardently struggled for farmer’s and women’s liberation.
Born into a Dalit family –the lowest stratum castes in India and previously characterized as the “untouchables” of society– Ambedkar devoted his life to liberating the Dalit people from the brutal realities of India’s Brahmanical caste system, including his leading role in mobilizing farmers in the 20th century.
Ambedkar authored India’s constitution in 1950, guided by a political philosophy that saw education as a pathway to Dalit freedom, and the need for a secular political sphere to eradicate Hindu supremacy.
Ambedkar importantly underscored the contradictions between India’s political and social spheres, which outlined equality for all in the constitution, while at the same time adhering to a caste system that deprives human rights for so many.
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2021-12-06 17:04:42+00:00
On this day in 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela.
Chávez launched the “Bolivarian Revolution,” named after Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century independence leader who liberated Venezuela and 4 other countries from Spanish colonial rule.
Despite failing to eradicate inefficiency and corruption in public administration and controlling the country’s high crime rate, Chávez’s legacy is still celebrated for its grand achievements, which include:
Decreasing the poverty rate from 42.8% to 26.5% between 1999 and 2011, and extreme poverty from 16.6% in 1999 to 7% in 2011.
Increasing the number of doctors from 20 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 80 per 100,000 in 2010, or an increase of 400%.
Reducing the infant mortality rate from 19.1 per thousand in 1999 to 10 per thousand in 2012, a reduction of 49%.
Lowering unemployment from 15.2% in 1998 to 6.4% in 2012.
In December 2005, UNESCO declared that Venezuela had eradicated illiteracy.
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2021-12-06 13:30:53+00:00
Supporters of far-right candidate Éric Zemmour attacked anti-racist activists at a rally in Villepinte, a suburb of Paris.
Punches & chairs were thrown at members of ‘SOS Racisme’ activists who stood up in their “No to Racism” T-shirts, leaving at least one injured and bloodied.
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2021-12-05 18:56:05+00:00
U.S. Establishment on Nelson Mandela: “Hero of Democracy”
U.S. Establishment on Fidel Castro: “Evil Dictator”
Mandela on Castro: “A source of inspiration to all freedom-loving peoples.”
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2021-12-05 15:55:06+00:00
8 years after his passing on this day, we remember the words of South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela about the destructive role of the U.S. empire.
“If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings.”
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2021-12-05 09:05:05+00:00
Every December 5 in the Netherlands, a racist tradition rooted in Dutch colonialism called “Black Pete” takes place. People yearly dress up in blackface as “helpers” of Santa.
Watch our report here: http://bit.ly/2MEKWqo
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2021-12-04 18:57:03+00:00
This is the gravestone of Fred Hampton, riddled with bullet holes.
The gravestone that commemorates the Black Panther leader who was assassinated by the police on a day like today in 1969 is to this day regularly defaced and shot up, allegedly by law enforcement officers, according to Fred Hampton’s son.
Photos are of Fred Hampton Jr. visiting his father’s grave on Father’s Day.
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2021-12-04 15:58:03+00:00
Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, assassinated on this day by the police, explains how the people in power use racism to maintain their rule by dividing working people and the oppressed.
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2021-12-04 10:56:03+00:00
Despite being a key issue of President Emmanuel Macron’s 2017 election platform, he has yet to move with a proper pension reform plan, saying this week that now was not the time to push ahead with pension reform.
Thousands of retirees are not buying Macron’s excuses, and have taken to the streets of Paris to demand higher pensions and better living conditions.
Following the call of nine different trade unions, the demonstrators marched with placards and banners asking Macron to listen to their demands ahead of the April 2022 presidential elections.
“For the first time in the Fifth Republic, we are going to have a five-year term where our pensions are lower at the end of the quinquennium than at the beginning,” said one pensioner.
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2021-12-03 20:59:03+00:00
How it started ➡️ How it's going
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2021-12-03 19:20:35+00:00
Outrageous and deeply disturbing scenes of a police officer dragging a Black man across a São Paulo highway as he is handcuffed to the cop’s moving motorcycle.
Onlookers in the video were laughing at the 18-year-old boy as he struggled to keep up with the motorbike.
This repugnant violence against Black people reveals a legacy of slavery and colonialism that still haunts Brazilian society to this day.
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2021-12-03 13:37:10+00:00
ADELANTE! Join in the 2021 LATIN AMERICA conference in London tomorrow for a discussion of a wide range of Latin American topics, workshops, films, discussions, and stalls. The conference brings together experts, academics, trade unionists, politicians, and activists from the UK, Europe and Latin America.
Three of our documentaries will be screened at the conference!
Details & Register: https://bit.ly/3lsAuE8
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2021-12-03 13:10:36+00:00
oday we remember the victims of the Bhopal gas leak, known as the world’s worst industrial disaster, which killed thousands and exposed over half a million people to toxic gas around this time in 1984.
The gas leak occurred at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. UCIL was 50.9% owned by Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation (UCC) located in the United States.
The disaster reportedly resulted from negligence, design flaws, understaffing, absence of maintenance, and lack of training. Normal measures that should’ve been taken weren’t, just to increase profits at the expense of people’s safety.
The first official and conservative death toll was 2,259, but other estimates have put the number as high as 20,000. Tens of thousands who were exposed to the gas but survived were severely disabled and many continue to die prematurely today.
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2021-12-02 16:01:53+00:00
Pro-choice activists are rallying in Poland as Parliament debates a total abortion ban, including cases of rape and pregnancies that pose a threat to women’s health.
Under the “stop abortion” bill, a fetus would classify as a child. Were it to become law, any person who helps a woman travel to an abortion facility, as well as the woman herself, could face years of imprisonment for murder.
Last year, Poland’s Catholic Church-influenced government put a near-total ban on abortion, leading to mass protests across the nation.
In recent months, the death of a 30-year-old woman –known only as Izabel– shook the nation, sparking countrywide protests again.
Izabel died of septic shock following doctors’ refusal to remove her fetus. Her fetus was diagnosed with defects.
She is considered the first victim of Poland’s new laws, and many women fear they will suffer the same fate.
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2021-12-02 14:15:03+00:00
A WTO conference that was meant to tackle waiving patent rights for vaccines was postponed this week due to the new omicron Covid-19 variant, likely ending any prospects for waiving patent rights for vaccines this year and perpetuating a vicious cycle of vaccine inequality that in turn leads to the emergence of new Covid-19 variants.
Wealthy governments including the EU, UK and Switzerland remain opposed to waiving vaccine patents. Wealthy countries have administered more booster shots in 4 months than poor countries have given total doses all of this year.
Only 7% of Africans have been fully vaccinated.
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2021-12-02 13:26:00+00:00
French troops have killed at least two and injured several protesters who have risen up to resist French neocolonialism and militarism across the region.
A current of resistance to French neocolonial military presence in West Africa was sparked in Burkina Faso in late November when protesters successfully stopped the French military convoy from moving through the country to its military base in Niger.
French troops faced even more resistance as they crossed the border into western Niger. They retaliated with tear gas, live ammunition, and terror on demonstrators.
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2021-12-02 10:01:38+00:00
Migrants traveling through Mexico have blocked a major highway in Chiapas to demand the state issue humanitarian visas and uphold their basic human rights.
For weeks on end, migrants from mostly Haiti and Central America have grown weary as they fight for Mexico to provide the legal means for their asylum and the material means for their survival. Many exhausted migrants have decided to turn back, discouraged by stalled progress.
Families with small children, many elderly and disabled people have been making the hazardous journey through Mexico for nearly three months.
They flee increasing political instability and violence in their homelands -- the result of their countries being the target of a bloody era of U.S. imperialist intervention.
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2021-12-01 15:30:30+00:00
Five years after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace deal with the Colombian government, Victoria Sandino, a former FARC commander, explains why the peace deal is about the fail.
Since the peace agreement was signed, government-backed narco groups have taken over former FARC territories. Since then, more than 270 activists and former FARC members have been murdered.
Victoria Sandino explains to Redfish how one of the world's longest civil wars started and why she joined the FARC.
“I decided to join the FARC because either I left the country or a grave awaited me in Colombia”.
Watch our documentary “Colombia’s False Promise of Peace: The Ongoing War On FARC”
https://youtu.be/TyYQpDM2tzM
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2021-12-01 14:12:36+00:00
As thousands of migrants and asylum seekers continue to be stuck in freezing temperatures on the Polish-Belarusian border, activists in Berlin occupied the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
The migrants, mostly coming from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, have set up fire camps on the border and are enduring temperatures below 0°C at night, with very little food and water. Several have died in the last weeks, with some cases linked to hypothermia and exhaustion.
These refugees are paying the price of 20 years of destabilization and war in their countries. Supported by Russia, Belarus is weaponizing them to exert pressure on NATO and the EU, who Poland Is backed by. Caught in the middle of this geopolitical dispute, refugees looking for safety are a reminder that both sides are responsible for the root causes of their migration.
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2021-12-01 12:04:29+00:00
Protestors in South Africa's Cape town are rallying against the new Amazon HQ. Amazon is planning to build their new headquarters along the Liesbeek River, which is considered as a sacred land for indigenous groups.
The protest took place as part of the global ‘Make Amazon Pay’ strike action and protest movement led by workers and activists who are fighting against bad working conditions, as well as Amazon's expansion in protected areas in the world.