05 December 20
The Hardest Part of Any Fundraiser Is Getting It Started
Getting out of the gate strong makes a huge difference on a lot of levels is our fundraising drives.
Tis the season of giving. Might also be the season of remembering the consistency, passion and determination with which the RSN Team peruses its mission.
Hoping for a quick start to a great funding drive.
Thanks to one and all.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
04 December 20
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
Juan Cole | Communists Were Jailed for Less: Trumpies Call for Overthrow of US Constitution
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "Trump supporters and Tea Partiers have begun calling for a suspension of the US constitution to prevent Joe Biden from taking office."
The only way to parse “suspension” of the constitution is its temporary overthrow. Moreover, they are calling for the use of force (“martial law”) toward that aim. They are also using diction such as the threat of civil war. Since nobody but them is talking about civil war, I take it they are envisioning firing off the AR-15s they have stockpiled.
Should they go to jail?
Other people did, for much less. Jessie DeLauder explains that in 1952 seven Seattle citizens were abruptly arrested by the FBI and charged not only with being members of the Communist Party but of therefore seeking to overthrow the constitution of the United States. They were charged under the 1940 Smith Act, passed in the shadow of WW II, which threatened with condign punishment those who
“knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association.”
Among the seven, DeLauder says, “Karley Larsen had, for seventeen consecutive years, held the position of the first vice-president of the International Woodworkers Union of Western Washington.” She was arrested at a union meeting in Oregon. Paul Bowen, an African-American veteran, trade unionist and civil rights activist, was arrested just outside Seattle.
As the seven went blue in the face asserting to the judge, they did not in fact advocate the violent overthrow of the US constitution, just because they belonged to the Communist Party.
They were nevertheless convicted, fined and sentenced to five years in jail for throught crimes. One committed suicide. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the convictions.
Given this success, The FBI went on an arrest spree, bringing cases all over the country. Only in 1957 did the Supreme Court finally return to its senses and rule that you can’t be imprisoned for your thoughts, only for your actions.
The Smith Act is still on the books, and I don’t think anyone who believes in human rights would ever want to see it deployed again. It should be repealed. Who knows, our present Supreme Court may be as conservative as the one who upheld the conviction of prisoners of conscience.
But, I’m just saying that there is a double standard in the United States. The far right literally gets away with murder, and no one is talking about locking up the Trump crazies for demanding the overthrow of the US constitution. If they called themselves socialists or if they weren’t white, though, they might well have started being investigated by now.
Woman rolls a marijuana joint. (photo: iStock)
The House Just Voted to Decriminalize Weed
Cameron Joseph, VICE
Joseph writes: "In a historic first, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to end the federal ban on cannabis. Senate Republicans are unlikely to take it up."
READ MORE
Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, speaks in front of the Capitol building. (photo: Deborah Barfield Berry)
'Changing the Tone' Is Key: Civil Rights Groups Urge Biden to Make COVID-19, Racial Justice Top Priorities
Deborah Barfield Berry, USA TODAY
Excerpt: "With only weeks until a change in the nation's leadership, civil rights leaders and advocacy groups are calling on President-elect Joe Biden to prioritize tackling COVID-19, systemic racism, food insecurities and other issues disproportionately impacting communities of color."
READ MORE
A drawing depicts a woman crying on a medical consent form. (photo: Innovation Law Lab)
ALSO SEE: Immigrants Detained by ICE Say They Were Punished
for Requesting Covid-19 Tests
LA Times Sues for Records on Abuse Claims at ICE Centers
Andrea Castillo and Jie Jenny Zou, Los Angeles Times
Excerpt: "The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, seeking the release of records detailing allegations of widespread sexual abuse and harassment at immigration detention centers."
READ MORE
Hospital staff look on as the United States Navy Blue Angels pass over Medical City Dallas on May 06, 2020, in Dallas, Texas. (photo: Tom Pennington/Getty)
Congress Is Deadlocked on Covid Relief but Came Together to Fund the Pentagon for $740 Billion
Sarah Lazare, In These Times
Lazare writes: "There is always money for war."
READ MORE
Security forces in Nigeria used live ammunition on protesters in October. (photo: Kola Sulaimon/AFP)
A Massacre in Lagos: Nigerian Military Forced to Admit It Fired Live Rounds at Peaceful Protesters
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "At least 12 people were killed in the massacre, which the Army initially denied, and capped weeks of demonstrations against the notorious Nigerian police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS."
CNN investigation has exposed the Nigerian Army’s role in a deadly attack on protesters in the capital city of Lagos in October, when soldiers opened fire on protesters gathered at Lekki toll gate, a key roadway and protest site. At least 12 people were killed in the massacre, which the Army initially denied, and capped weeks of demonstrations against the notorious Nigerian police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS. Senior CNN international correspondent Nima Elbagir says the massacre “had a chilling effect” on the protest movement and enraged many Nigerians. “We kept hearing from these families who were still looking for their loved ones how hurtful it had been for them to hear the Nigerian government deny that they had anything to do with this huge and grievous loss,” says Elbagir.
People protest the Enbridge Energy Line 3 oil pipeline project in St Paul, Minnesota. (photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty)
A Huge Oil Pipeline Is Coming to Minnesota - and With It the Risk of COVID
Emily Holden, Guardian UK
Holden writes: "As Covid-19 cases surge in Minnesota, an oil company is bringing in thousands of out-of-state workers to finish building a pipeline from Canada that will stretch hundreds of miles across the state."
Advocates and Native tribes, who have fought the proposal for years, have renewed complaints amid a coronavirus surge
Environmental advocates and Native American tribes have fought Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 proposal for years, and now medical professionals are joining in to plead with the governor to halt construction amid the pandemic.
Enbridge secured its final permits from the state this week, and workers are already arriving, although lawsuits are ongoing.
In Aitkin county where construction is starting, a senior nurse at the Riverwood healthcare center said the staff is already struggling.
“Our nurses, we’re very stressed out. It’s taking more staff to take care of Covid patients, and we’re seeing a lot of our families and friends and our relatives that we’re caring for,” said the nurse, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her position. “We know within the next couple of weeks, it’s going to get bad again.”
Riverwood is a “critical access” hospital, a designation for rural hospitals meant to improve healthcare access to small communities. It has 25 beds and four intensive care beds. The hospital has been trying to transfer the sickest patients to bigger facilities, but those hospitals are increasingly at capacity.
Nearly 200 Minnesota health professionals are petitioning the governor’s office for an emergency stay of construction, arguing an influx of workers will increase community spread of Covid-19.
“Minnesota is currently facing a massive surge in Covid-19 cases. Our hospital capacity is limited and the resilience of our workforce is being challenged,” their petition reads. “A major outbreak in a rural area with limited healthcare capacity such as Aitkin county … will have ripple effects across our entire state healthcare infrastructure.”
Kristina Krohn, a hospitalist at the University of Minnesota medical school in Minneapolis who signed the petition, has worked as the triage doctor answering calls from small-town medical providers who need to transfer very sick patients. The arrival of workers in rural Minnesota makes her nervous for her 70-year-old parents, she said.
“If they get sick, I want a hospital bed available for them,” said Krohn, who spoke to the Guardian in her personal capacity and not on behalf of the university. “When we are encouraging people to not travel for Thanksgiving or Christmas, then I think we need to also not encourage large groups of people to travel for work that doesn’t have to be done right now.”
Following renewed complaints this week, Enbridge has updated its Covid-19 preparedness plan. In addition to regular testing, temperature checks, and masking and distancing requirements, the company is encouraging workers to avoid public spaces whenever possible. The company will increase to 4,000 employees – some local and some not – over four to six weeks, it said. Any sick contractors will be transported to hospitals close to their permanent residences if they need advanced care.
In a statement to the Guardian, Enbridge said safety was its top priority. Laalitha Surapaneni, a Minneapolis physician with the group Health Professionals for a Health Climate, countered that the updated plan was not sufficient and “shifts the burden of reducing Covid spread to individual workers”.
The Enbridge pipeline is meant to replace an original line was built in the 1960s and is corroding, risking an oil spill. Enbridge has argued the project will create 6,500 direct and indirect local jobs over two years.
Shanai Matteson, a climate change advocate who lives next to one of the two sites where the pipeline will cross the Mississippi River, in Aitkin county, said she has seen trucks with mostly out-of-state license plates.
“It seems insane to me that we would do this, especially looking at oil prices and the demand. It’s going down,” Matteson said. “So why are we putting our precious environment at risk and our public health at risk when it’s for something not even needed?”
The state’s department of commerce is also challenging the line, saying Enbridge has not proved there is demand for the oil the pipeline would carry.
State energy regulators will on Friday consider a separate request to halt the project while court battles are ongoing, from the Red Lake Band of Chippewa and the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. White Earth is also considering federal lawsuits over treaty rights.
Last month, a majority of members of an environmental justice advisory committee for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency resigned in protest after the agency approved a key water quality permit for the pipeline.
People of color have disproportionately suffered during the pandemic. Native Americans in particular are four times more likely than white Americans to be hospitalized with Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There is not a more egregious decision you could have made in the state of Minnesota right now. This pipeline is fucking rammed down throats of the native people,” said Winona LaDuke, an activist with Honor the Earth who lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota.
“Who’s going to be liable for the outbreak that kills, you know, 500 people? Who pays for that? Enbridge pays for that? Who’s going to take responsibility for that one?”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.