“Progressive” Gentrification: One Community’s Struggle Against Affordable Housing
Aaron Cantú, Truthout: Under the mayor’s affordable housing plan, a New York City neighborhood’s rezoning may result in its own kind of gentrification. Some Brooklyn residents were told they must accept rezoning, and likely development near transit lines, if they want to protect other parts of their community.
Hillary Clinton in Winnipeg: An Exercise in Cognitive Dissonance
Harrison Samphir, Truthout: Hillary Clinton’s embryonic presidential campaign made two stops in Canada on January 21. The former secretary of state spoke about terrorism and human rights, but hid a damaging foreign policy record veiled in the language of populism. It was a textbook case of cognitive dissonance.
Rebecca Solnit, Trinity University Press: If you’re poor, the only way you’re likely to injure someone is the old traditional way: artisanal violence. But if you’re tremendously wealthy, you can practice industrial-scale violence without any manual labor on your own part. Climate change is global-scale violence against places and species.
Bringing Fanon’s Concerning Violence to Film
Alnoor Ladha, Truthout: Activist and author Alnoor Ladha interviews coproducer Joslyn Barnes about Göran Hugo Olsson’s film, Concerning Violence, which explores African liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s.
Raul A. Reyes, OtherWords: GOP presidential hopefuls are cozying up to anti-immigrant extremists and right-wing billionaires. Letting hardliners dictate immigration policy makes Republicans look long on ugly rhetoric and short on real solutions.
Fox News: PR Department for ISIS
The Daily Take Team, The Thom Hartmann Program: By airing the gruesome video of Jordanian fighter pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned alive, Fox News gave ISIS some free exposure and became the newest member of its propaganda machine.
Populist Movement’s “Ground Zero”: The Effort to Reclaim Chicago
Jacob Swenson-Lengyel, Campaign for America’s Future: In the broader struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party, Chicago is ground zero. There, populists, led by Reclaim Chicago, are working to build a lasting independent political movement to upend the corporate rule of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his rubber-stamp city council.
How to Get Serious About Ending the ISIS War
Sarah Lazare, Foreign Policy in Focus: Now is a critical time to seek to understand and build solidarity with Iraqi and Syrian civil societies and strengthen awareness here at home of the tremendous political and ethical debt the United States owes all people harmed by the now-discredited war on Iraq and the crises it set in motion.
The Obama Administration and Immigration Policy: The Immigration Enforcement Record in Recent Years
Nikki Hager, The Council on Hemispheric Affairs: The Obama administration has deported more immigrants than most of its predecessors. The president is, however, taking a more progressive approach than in the past, granting the opportunity for temporary deportation relief to more than 5 million undocumented immigrants. Here is an overview of President Obama’s immigration policies.
Matthew Harwood, TomDispatch: There’s only one problem with the rising crescendo of alarm about lone wolf terrorists: most of it simply isn’t true. Worst of all, its recent highlighting paves the way for increased abusive and counterproductive police and national security practices, like infiltration of minority and activist communities and elaborate sting operations that ensnare the vulnerable.
Murder, Mass Incarceration, Militarization and Genocide in Progress
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends, Black Agenda Report: Mass incarceration; state-sponsored murder coast-to-coast; the impoverishment of black wealth through wholesale thievery by corporate and banking foreclosures; and the militarization of police: Had these crimes against African Americans been committed in a theater of war, they would rise to the level of genocide as defined by the United Nations.
A Theory About European Naval Domination
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: Western Europe had a disproportionately large number of skilled open-sea sailors. Very few of them would have been engaged in warfare in normal times, or even during wars. Can’t we argue that these sailors provided a base of skills that gave the Atlantic fringe a big military advantage at sea?
Governor Cuomo of New York has declared a statewide ban on fracking. Local citizen-led initiatives in Ohio, Texas, New Mexico and California have likewise led to the banning of the practice.
BuzzFlash
Religion Should Be What Binds Us Together, Not What Justifies Killing Each Other
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: We do not need to look to sources outside ourselves for the divine; we need to look to the divine in each other.
How Do We Stop a Temper Tantrum War?
Claims Against Saudis Cast Light on Secrets of 9/11 Report
Read the Article at The New York Times
Diane Rehm Examines the Dangers of Monsanto’s Roundup and Dow’s Enlist Duo Herbicides
NBC’s Brian Williams Forced to Retract Story About Coming Under Fire in Iraq
Read the Article at The Guardian
Twelve-Year-Olds Are Fair Game: Michelle Malkin and the Right’s Ugly New Smear Strategy
Air Pollution and Kids: Altered Brain, Memory, IQ
Read the Article at Science Daily
US Judge Appointed to Head UN Gaza War Crimes Inquiry
Spirit In Action 