“Mitch better have my money.” - America $2,000

 

The $600 checks in the latest stimulus compromise are a slap in the face. We need at least $2,000 — and frankly the checks should be retroactive and monthly.

Last night, Donald Trump admitted it. He said he’d sign a bill with $2,000 checks. So now we have Trump, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer all saying, “Yes, let’s do $2,000 checks.”

Who’s standing in the way? Mitch McConnell.

We can amend the bill this week and get $2,000 checks. We just have to amp up the pressure on Mitch, and show him the American people aren’t going to put up with $600. So we’re joining up with AOC, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Justice Dems and more to call on Congress to amend the stimulus bill to include $2,000 checks.

Can you sign your name to our massive petition to Congress? Tell them to pass the amendment increasing the checks from $600 to $2,000 immediately?

Mitch has been resisting any sort of real help for struggling families for months. Now Donald Trump has put him in an impossible position. He’s the only one standing between us and our $2,000 checks.

Millions of Americans are saying, “Mitch better have my money.”

Thanks for taking action today,

Charles Booker
Booker for the People

Paid for by Booker for the People, Ltd., not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

FAIR: Our Government Needs to Protect Workers, Not Corporations’

 

View article on FAIR's website ‘Our Government Needs to Protect Workers, Not Corporations’ JANINE JACKSON   Janine Jackson interviewed Jessica Martinez about worker safety and Covid relief for the December 18, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.    Janine Jackson: “Coronavirus Relief Package Hits Snags Over Details,” ran a recent headline. One of those “details” was the health and safety of US workers, and their ability to protect them. As we record on December 17, it looks as though Congress will pass a package without the “liability shield,” as it was termed, that Mitch McConnell wanted, to “protect” businesses from Covid-related lawsuits brought by their workers. While that outcome beats the alternative, it's not cause for complacency. The measure McConnell wanted in, derived from a bill introduced in July by the Senate leader’s aide-de-camp, John Cornyn of Texas, that would exempt employers from enforcing a range of laws and standards, under the pretext of shielding them from frivolous lawsuits related to the pandemic. The bill was called the “Safeguarding America’s Frontline Employees To Offer Work Opportunities Required to Kickstart the Economy Act,” or, yeah, SAFE TO WORK Act. You could call that chutzpah, but “grotesque” might be a better word. With many years of experience in public health and worker rights, Jessica Martinez is co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. She joins us now by phone from Los Angeles. Welcome to CounterSpin, Jessica Martinez. Jessica Martinez: Thank you so much, Janine, for inviting me. JJ: The measure that Republican senators, led by McConnell, wanted in this package reflected S.4317, the bill introduced by John Cornyn, which said at the time that it was aimed at “discouraging insubstantial lawsuits relating to Covid-19.” But what the proposal does, or will do if they're able to push it through at any point, is something very different than that, isn't it? JM: Yes, it is. The so-called “corporate liability shield,” in the falsely named SAFE TO WORK Act, is a terrible idea, and absolutely should not be in our Covid relief bill. It's essentially a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for rich corporations, and it should not be in any legislation, ever. If you or I do something negligent—let's say we have a bonfire in our backyard, and it gets out of control and damages our neighbor's house—we will be held accountable: Our neighbors could sue us, and of course we would be liable for the cost of damages to another person's property. Why should a corporation be treated any differently? Our government needs to protect workers, not corporations. JJ: So what made them think that somehow the pandemic gave them a special kind of rubric to push this through? What we heard was, “Golly, this is such a hard time for small businesses and for various companies, and the last thing they want to deal with is a rush of ‘insubstantial lawsuits,’” which of course, it didn't explain what “insubstantial” might mean. But, in fact, it actually is very, very broad; if you look, as you and few others did, actually down into page 55 of this SAFE TO WORK Act, it shows that it's actually much, much broader than a quick read might tell you, in terms of what it's letting employers off the hook for. Jessica Martinez: "American workers are sick and dying and broke from this pandemic. So why on Earth would you suspend the very laws that are supposed to protect us?" JM: You’re right. This liability shield is worse than advertised. When we first heard about this “Get Out of Jail Free” card for rich corporations, the main feature was that companies cannot be sued over Covid-19 issues. But the language of the bill is much worse: It actually says there can be no federal enforcement of health and safety laws relating to Covid-19 issues. It also bans enforcement of other laws that protect workers, such as the Fair Labor Standards, age discrimination, civil rights. And American workers are sick and dying and broke from this pandemic. So why on Earth would you suspend the very laws that are supposed to protect us? Workers in our state and local governance should not be held hostage. As you know, this legislation is moving quickly in Congress, and there are a number of moving parts. Media reports indicate that Republicans may drop their demand for a liability shield if Democrats give up on funds to support state and local government. Well, this crazy idea to let companies off the hook for endangering workers should never have been in any legislation in the first place. And why should cities and states be held hostage? Local governments have been devastated by the pandemic because they have lost billions in tax revenues. If the GOP refuses to provide aid, they're defunding our schools, our hospitals, our transit systems—all services we desperately need during this pandemic. JJ: It's like basically saying labor law doesn't matter under this circumstance. So as I saw one write-up say, “OK, so if your employer breaks the Occupational Safety and Health Act by not protecting you, well, now you can't sue.” JM: That's right. JJ: If the grocery store says, “We're not going to pay you overtime,” you're going to work extra hours because of the coronavirus, you can't sue. It's a number of things that you might be able to bring action on, and the pandemic is being used as cover to say you can't do that. JM: And, currently, we know that OSHA has failed to protect workers. You mentioned OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is tasked with protecting and enforcing worker health and safety rights in the workplace. This plan to cripple OSHA, just when workers need it the most, has to be placed in context. Up until now, the agency's response to Covid-19 has been totally inadequate. OSHA has been AWOL. The agency has medicine that could have been saved for workers’ lives, and they left it locked in the cabinet. By “medicine,” I'm not necessarily referring to a vaccine or treatment. I mean legal and regulatory authority. JJ: Right. JM: Authority to issue a temporary emergency standard, authority to conduct inspections, to issue fines, authority to publicize fines against companies, so other companies are encouraged to comply with the law. Getting into the numbers, about 11,000 worker complaints to OSHA have been submitted regarding Covid-19, and as of last week, just 279 complaints were opened; that's just 2.5%. Again, this legislation is worse, and could potentially completely destroy any protections for workers. HuffPost (10/12/20) JJ: And media often frame things as “workers versus employers,” but it's obvious that undermining workers’ health is socially harmful; it's not like anybody wins when people get sick at work and then bring it home to their community. And to your point about OSHA, Dave Jamieson at Huffpost was talking about how ignoring worker complaints, not doing inspections at this time, it's wrong anytime, but it's also a missed opportunity, because worker complaints tend to coincide with spikes in deaths. And so the complaints, as Jamieson put it, are a “missed opportunity” to intervene that OSHA could have taken. JM: That's right. And we know that the virus has spread from workplace hotspots into our neighborhoods and communities. Why would we ever let companies off the hook for such irresponsible behavior? Some companies have taken steps to reduce risk, with social distancing, PPE, good ventilation, rotating shifts and other measures. But this has also come about because workers have taken job actions, and have pressured employers into doing so. But some have been simply irresponsible. They have ignored common sense, public and occupational health measures, and allowed the virus to rage out of control in workplaces. Workers have become sick and many have died, and, in fact, the impact itself has been most severe on Black, brown and Indigenous communities who, in reality, are working some of the most high-hazard, dangerous jobs in this country. So it is quite tragic, and, again, it's terrible legislation. LA Times (7/29/20) JJ: And then you read a report that says—this was Roll Call, but it could be anywhere—saying that Republicans want a liability shield “if employers follow basic federal health safety guidelines.” And so I think it's important to call out what counts as “compliance” in this vision. And the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik was maybe the only person I saw saying, “Companies only need to say that they're ‘exploring options to comply with law,’” or that they looked into it, and it turned out they couldn't comply with safety policies, and that turns out to be enough. So that's the alternate. JM: Right. And that's coming from the LA Times, where there is, in California, a state plan, so essentially, protections are a little bit better than the federal standard. It's really just OSHA, in particular, again, has failed us in all accounts; when inspections do happen, they're weak and inadequate fines. Smithfield, a meat processing plant in South Dakota, had one of the worst outbreaks in the US. More than 1,300 infections, four workers died. OSHA inspected and fined the company only $13,000. Just a few thousand dollars for the life of each worker. That’s just $10 per infection. This is a multi-billion-dollar company. JJ: Yeah. JM: So it is really just a slap on the wrist, and it just sends out the message that employers can do what they want and get away with it. JJ: There's things that you can debunk, and I was happy to see Eli Rosenberg at the Washington Post debunk the idea that there's going to be this wave of unfair litigation. Well, there's not a wave of litigation, period. In fact, businesses themselves are a much larger source of litigation than employees. And there's a lot of harmful and debunkable myths like that. But I feel like there's a bigger lie about a necessary tradeoff, you know, that workers somehow have to choose between health and a paycheck, which, of course, is health, too. You know, this idea that this choice, “Oh it's harmful, but it's really necessary, because there's nothing else we can do.” I feel like that's kind of like the big picture lie that we're dealing with. JM: Right. And we've been doing this work, National COSH has been doing this work, for over 20 years. You know, we saw this coming. I mean, our work around ensuring that all workers have access to a healthy and safe workplace is deeply and intimately connected to other worker issues—whether it is a living wage, benefits, fairness—it's all interconnected. And these workers that we're now calling essential workers have always been essential workers for our country and our economy. And the reality is that it's terrible that we've been holding this relief package from workers for so long, a relief package that also does not even reach all workers that need the relief. We're talking about a lot of workers who—whether they’re immigrant workers, who many work in these high-hazard industries and are considered essential—are not getting economic relief. If they potentially get infected, there is no guarantee of a return to work, let alone paid sick leave. It's really tragic on all fronts and, again, our local COSH groups are doing everything that they can to advocate for workers to ensure that this bill does not pass. We urge listeners, your listeners, to call their senators and representatives to tell them that the wealthy irresponsible corporations do not deserve a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. The reports are accurate that this terrible liability shield will not be in the final legislation, but bad ideas like this have a way of coming back again. We need to bury this idea once and for all, because workers are getting killed on the job, and we have to do all we can to prevent it--not make it easier for companies to get away with murder, essentially. JJ:  We've been speaking with Jessica Martinez. She's co-executive director of the  National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. We're certainly going to be following this issue going forward, but right now, we'd like to thank you. They're online at COSHnetwork.org. Thank you very much, Jessica Martinez, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.   JM: Thank you again for extending this platform.

© 2020 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. All rights reserved. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Our mailing address is: FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING 124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201 New York, NY 10001 FAIR's Website FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today.

RSN: FOCUS: Robert Reich | What Election Day Revealed About Progressive Policies

 

 

23 December 20

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FOCUS: Robert Reich | What Election Day Revealed About Progressive Policies

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Website
Reich write: "The people have given Biden and Congress a mandate for bold, progressive change. Now they must deliver."

Americans are hungry for change, as evidenced by what happened on Election Day.

Voters handily supported progressive ballot initiatives across the country.

In Florida, an amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour passed with 61 percent support, even though the state went for Trump.

And that wasn’t the only successful progressive ballot initiative to succeed in a redder state: Both Montana and South Dakota voted to legalize recreational marijuana, along with the bluer states of New Jersey and Arizona. Arizona continued its progressive streak by approving a tax increase on the wealthy to fund its education system, as did Colorado. Colorado also voted to fund a public paid family leave program.

And measures tackling our brutal systems of mass incarceration and policing prevailed in multiple states: California restored the voting rights of 50,000 people with felony convictions on parole, while Michigan overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment limiting police powers.

On the local level, 18 ballot initiatives addressing police violence and accountability passed in major cities across the country. And in Los Angeles, voters passed a measure to invest in communities that have been impacted by our racist police and prison systems – prioritizing jobs, housing, and alternatives to incarceration.

All these ballot victories show that bold, progressive policies are enormously popular regardless of ideology. They’re proof that embracing humanity and dignity is both a sound moral choice and a winning electoral strategy.

Every incumbent House Democrat who co-sponsored Medicare for All kept their seat in the general election – including several of them in Republican-leaning districts, like Pennsylvania Representative Matt Cartwright, whose district went for Trump. And 92 out of the 93 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal legislation in the House won reelection, including four representatives in battleground districts.

The success of these candidates shouldn’t be surprising, given the broad support for both of these policies. A pre-election report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that 53 percent of Americans favor a national health-care option, including 58 percent of independents.

Exit polling this year found that 66 percent of voters believe climate change is a serious problem.

Support for systemic action doesn’t end there: early exit polls indicated that 57 percent of all voters across the country support the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement’s historic summer protests appear to have secured Democratic victories. A recent study found that registration of Democratic and unaffiliated voters surged in June, at the peak of the protests. That voter registration effort, combined with tireless grassroots organizing by communities of color, helped carry Biden to victory.

The writing is on the wall. Voters passed progressive ballot initiatives, even in red states; they reelected progressive candidates who embraced bold policies; and they expressed support for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and an end to systemic racism.

The people have given Biden and Congress a mandate for bold, progressive change. Now they must deliver.

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Stacey Abrams says this has NEVER happened before

 

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Folks,

This is UNPRECEDENTED!

Gwinnett could decide the outcome of all three statewide races this January as one of Georgia’s largest and most diverse counties -- but with the holidays around the corner, we've got a ways to go to turn out as many Democrats as possible.

Stacey and hundreds of organizers have been working in counties like ours for years to mobilize our communities and tackle rampant voter suppression -- turning Georgia into a battleground state and transforming our entire democracy in the process.

This cycle, we paved the way for a Blue Wave in Gwinnett by investing an unprecedented amount to fund phone banks, texting programs, and mailers and recruit poll watchers and lawyers at every single one of our 156 precincts.

We’re running out of time.

Can we count on you?

-- Gwinnett County Democrats

Paid for by the Gwinnett County Democratic Party

Gwinnett County Democratic Party
P. O. Box 642
Lawrenceville, GA 30046
United States

Lindsey Graham: GOP is "screwed" if they lose GA runoffs

 

“If Loeffler and Perdue lose in Georgia, we’re screwed,” Lindsey Graham admitted in a recent radio interview.   We don’t agree with Graham on much, but credit where credit’s due -- he’s got it spot on. If Georgia voters repudiate Loeffler and Perdue (and by extension McConnell), it will be the clearest sign yet that the Republican ship is going down with Trump.   But the stakes of this runoff are sky-high, and not just because of the mandate Democrats will have if both Loeffler and Purdue lose, but because of what will happen if EITHER of them win and the GOP keeps the Senate.   That’s because Mitch McConnell has proven himself the shrewdest Republican that the U.S. Senate has seen in decades. And with even a single-seat majority, that man will grind the entire city of Washington D.C. to a halt.   Biden’s plans to expand health care to millions more Americans? On life support.   A comprehensive COVID-19 relief package to keep families and small businesses afloat for months to come? Dead in the water.   Real climate action that will protect our grandchildren from the disaster on our doorsteps? Vanished into thin air.   Frank, the choice is clear. Either we elevate Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to a commanding victory next month, giving Democrats the power they need to fix this country, or everything we’ve worked to achieve these last four years disappears.   If you want to deny Mitch McConnell the power he now has -- if you want to see the entire Republican Party “screwed” and Dems passing progressive legislation -- please, chip in now to support Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, and our own efforts to flip Georgia blue once and for all. Everything is on the line right now, and we need all hands on deck. You have our undying gratitude for everything you’ve done so far. Victory in Georgia is so close we can taste it -- but we’re not there yet.   Progressive Majority   Progressive Majority PAC is leading the fight against Trump's dangerous and divisive agenda by helping elect progressive Democrats to Congress and protecting the gains we made in the midterms. This movement is powered by progressives like you. Progressive Majority PAC 410 1st St, SE Suite 310 Washington, DC 20003   Paid for by Progressive Majority PAC

Happy Holidays from the Win Without War Gang! What. A. Year! (video)

 

We know it's been a challenging year for many. But what we’ve seen from you, and thousands of other Win Without War activists in such a difficult moment, is beyond inspiring.

So before we officially say goodbye to 2020, I wanted to make sure you had a chance to hear our reflections — because through so much hardship we still found and created bright spots!

Thank you for everything you’ve done this year to envision and achieve a more peaceful and progressive foreign policy — we all have such deep, deep gratitude for your activism and support.

Here’s to a (hopefully restorative) last week!

Thank you for working for peace,

Amy, Sara, Erica, Annika, Michael, Kate, Faith, Amisha, Stephen, Shayna, and Abbey — the entire Win Without War team

© Win Without War 2020
1 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005
(202) 656-4999 

RSN: Juan Cole | Trump Aping Mideast Tinpot Dictators and Raving About Declaring Martial Law

 

 

23 December 20

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It’s “Reader Supported News.” Everyone who comes here knows that. We are a community based organization. We don’t take corporate cash. We speak truth to power as our community expects.

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Juan Cole | Trump Aping Mideast Tinpot Dictators and Raving About Declaring Martial Law

Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "With Trump raving in White House meetings, prompted by the equally certifiable Michael Flynn, about declaring martial law, it sets an old Middle East hand like me thinking."

In my part of the world, leaders declare martial law or a “state of emergency” at the drop of a helmet. And once they declare it, it often sticks around forever.

Syria has been under a “state of emergency” or martial law off and on since its first modern military coup d’etat in 1949. The country became independent of France in 1946 and had an elected government with president and parliament by 1948. But in March of 1949 the CIA backed a coup by Gen. Husni Zaim. Then from late 1948 until late 1951, civilian government returned, with a new constitution and parliament. Col. Adib Shishakli made another coup. He was overthrown by another general in February 1954. But then that general went back to the constitution and allowed a parliament to be elected. By 1957 martial law was lifted briefly.

I can’t go through all the coups and declarations of martial law in modern Syria. Suffice it to say that there were more, including in 1963. But that one stuck. The 1963 declaration of martial law just stayed in force, even after the 1970 coup that brought Hafez al-Assad to power in 1971. His son Bashar al-Assad succeeded him, and lifted martial law in 2011 in hopes of tamping down the Arab Spring. But then the civil war broke out that summer. I don’t know if al-Assad bothered to re-invoke martial law or a state of emergency, but it is the de facto state of affairs, after coming up on 10 years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced half the country.

Trump wants desperately to be like a Syrian dictator.

I guess it is a good thing for us that the CIA apparently doesn’t much like Trump.

The Turkish military used to make a coup roughly every ten years. They would declare martial law until their membership in NATO made them go back to the barracks and bring back the civilian politicians. But after martial law in 1978-1983, the military government announced a state of emergency that lasted until 2002. In the late 1990s, the military made a “soft coup.” After the 2016 failed coup, President Tayyip Erdogan has been acting as though there were martial law in the country, essentially discounting constitutional rights.

In September, 1978, Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, the shah or king of Iran, had troops massacre protesting crowds on “Black Friday.” Effectively, martial law was declared, and by November, the shah brought in a military government. He was nevertheless overthrown.

The constitution of the subsequent Islamic Republic of Iran does not permit the executive to declare martial law– any such move needs parliamentary approval.

Iran’s is a deeply authoritarian government, but even it has the old revolutionary’s distrust of martial law as an instrument.

You have to wonder if the US needs a provision like that.

READ MORE

Trump supporters at a 'Stop the Steal' rally outside of the Georgia state capitol on 21 November. (photo: Nathan Posner/Rex/Shutterstock)

Trump Threatens to Not Sign COVID-19 Bill, Wants Bigger (2K) Stimulus Checks
Reuters
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to not sign an $892 billion coronavirus relief bill that includes desperately needed money for individual Americans, saying it should be amended to increase the amount in the stimulus checks."

U.S. government operations are being funded on a temporary basis through Dec. 28, waiting for the $1.4 trillion in federal spending for fiscal 2021 that is also part of the bill.

Failure to either pass another stopgap bill or override a possible Trump veto of the legislation could result in a partial government shutdown. The threat by the outgoing Republican president, who has less than a month left in office, throws into turmoil a bipartisan effort in Congress to provide help for people whose lives have been upended by the pandemic.

“The bill they are now planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated,” Trump said in a video posted on Twitter. “It really is a disgrace.”

The U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate both passed the legislation overwhelmingly on Monday night.

Trump said he wants Congress to increase the amount in the stimulus checks to $2,000 for individuals or $4,000 for couples, instead of the “ridiculously low” $600 for individuals that is in the bill.

Trump also complained about money provided for foreign countries, the Smithsonian Institution and fish breeding, among other spending that is in the part of the legislation to fund the U.S. government.

“I’m also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and to send me a suitable bill, or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And maybe that administration will be me,” said Trump, who has continued to push baseless claims that he won re-election in November.

Trump, who will leave office on Jan. 20 when President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, did not use the word “veto” in his statement.

The 92-6 vote in the Senate and the 359-53 vote in the House both are well over the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto, though some Republicans might balk at overriding a veto if Trump used that power.

A bill can be amended if congressional leadership wants to do so. If they don’t, Trump’s choices are to sign the bill into law, veto it, or do nothing and let it become law.

If the bill is amended, doing so by Dec. 28 could be very difficult. It took months for the parties to agree to the thousands of elements in not only the coronavirus aid part, but the $1.4 trillion agreement to fund much of the U.S. government.

Even if leadership wants to amend the bill, it still would have to be voted upon by the full House and Senate. Also, many Republicans might balk at the $2,000 direct payments because that would boost the cost of the bill to well over $1 trillion.

Two years ago, a record-long, 35-day government shutdown was sparked when Congress sent Trump a government spending bill it thought he would support, only to see him reject it over what he said was insufficient funding for building his vaunted U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Trump also said a two-year tax break for corporate meal expenses was “not enough” to help struggling restaurants.

The White House did not signal any objections to the legislation before it passed and gave every expectation that Trump would sign it. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was involved in the negotiations over the bill.

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s intentions.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a tweet that Republicans would not say during negotiations what amount Trump wanted the stimulus checks to be. She said Democrats are ready to bring his proposal for $2,000 checks to the House floor for a vote this week. She did not address Trump’s other concerns.

Trump’s complaints came just as the 5,500-page bill was being processed for sending to the White House for signing by the president, who is scheduled to leave on Wednesday afternoon to spend the rest of the year at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump’s video was taped in private at the White House, without reporters present, continuing a recent boycott of appearing at public events where he might be exposed to questions about his failed attempt to challenge the results of the Nov. 3 election.

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Demonstrators gather outside of Irwin county detention center in September. (photo: John Arthur Brown/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock)

More Immigrant Women Say They Were Abused by ICE Gynecologist
Victoria Bekiempis, Guardian UK
Bekiempis writes: "More women have joined an official legal petition alleging that they were medically abused by a gynecologist while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in a move that significantly expands a case that has shocked America."

More than 40 women submitted testimony claiming abuse, alleging they underwent invasive and unnecessary procedures

The legal petition outlining these alleged abuses were filed in the Middle District of Georgia federal court late Monday night. More than 40 women have submitted written testimony attesting to claims of abuse, one attorney on their case said.

These women, who have been detained by Ice at Irwin county detention center in Georgia, have alleged that they underwent invasive and unnecessary medical procedures. The women’s attorneys have also alleged that these women endured retribution for speaking out, including deportation in some cases. The petition largely echoed past legal filings and accounts by accusers.

“Petitioners were victims of non-consensual, medically unindicated and/or invasive gynecological procedures, including unnecessary surgical procedures under general anesthesia, performed by and/or at the direction of [gynaecologist Dr Mahendra Amin],” the petition said. “In many instances, the medically unindicated gynecological procedures Respondent Amin performed on Petitioners amounted to sexual assault.”

Officials were aware of this alleged misconduct since 2018, the petition further alleged, “but have nonetheless continued a policy or custom of sending women to be mistreated and abused by Respondent Amin … The experiences Petitioners had at the hands of Respondent Amin form part of a disturbing pattern of inhumane medical abuse and mistreatment at ICDC.”

“This is an effort to protect women who have suffered horrendous medical atrocities while detained in US custody, and every effort has been made by both Ice and the contractors at this facility to cover up these medical abuses,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, a leading attorney on the case.

She added: “For more than two years, both the government, and the private contractors who run this facility, have turned a blind eye to the enormous suffering and intentional harm–and intentional medical abuse – that has taken place here.”

“It’s unlike anything I ever expected to see in America,” Mukherjee said.

The women’s allegations emerged after a shocking whistleblower report. This report, which was submitted on behalf of a former nurse at the facility, Dawn Wooten, alleged that an alarmingly high number of hysterectomies were performed on Spanish-speaking women. Wooten and other nurses feared that these women did not understand the procedures they underwent.

Wooten alleged that the doctor performing these procedures, who was subsequently named as gynecologist Dr Mahendra Amin, had become notorious for performing these operations – so much so that she called him the “uterus collector” in her whistleblower account.

“Everybody he sees has a hysterectomy – just about everybody,” Wooten stated in her complaint. “I’ve had several inmates tell me that they’ve been to see the doctor, and they’ve had hysterectomies, and they don’t know why they went or why they’re going.”

Wooten also said that the medical center where these procedures were performed had unsanitary conditions, as well as poor safety measures against Covid-19.

Amin has denied the allegations and told the Intercept that he had only conducted “one or two hysterectomies in the past two [or] three years”. He did not specify whether these procedures were performed on women in Irwin.

The physician’s lawyer, Scott Grubman, said in a previous statement: “We look forward to all of the facts coming out, and are confident that once they do, Dr Amin will be cleared of any wrongdoing.” Ice contended that its records indicate just two referrals for hysterectomies at Irwin.

The accusations have spurred comparisons with the US’s disturbing history of eugenics. From 1907 to 1937, two-thirds of US states passed laws that permitted involuntary sterilization – resulting in the sterilization of more than 60,000 people.

An increase in federal funding for reproductive health procedures in the 1960s and 1970s, in conjunction with racism and anti-immigrant sentiment, resulted in “tens of thousands” of women of color undergoing sterilizations.

Though forced sterilization was made illegal, it has continued. From 1997 to 2013, approximately 1,400 inmates were sterilized in California prisons.

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A burnt car at the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on a crowd in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2007. Donald Trump has pardoned the four contractors jailed over the killing of 14 civilians. (photo: Ali Yussef/AFP/Getty Images)

ALSO SEE: Trump Pardons 15, Including People Convicted
in Mueller Probe

Trump Pardons Blackwater Contractors Jailed for Massacre of Iraq Civilians
Michael Safi, Guardian UK
Safi writes: "Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war."

Four guards fired on unarmed crowd in Baghdad in 2007, killing 14 and sparking outrage over use of private security in war zones

The four guards – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten – were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns, grenade launchers and a sniper on a crowd of unarmed people in a square in the Iraqi capital.

The Nisour Square massacre was one of the lowest episodes of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Slough, Liberty and Heard were convicted on multiple charges of voluntary and attempted manslaughter in 2014, while Slatten, who was the first to start shooting, was convicted of first-degree murder. Slattern was sentenced to life and the others to 30 years in prison each.

An initial prosecution was thrown out by a federal judge – sparking outrage in Iraq – but the then vice-president, Joe Biden, promised to pursue a fresh prosecution, which succeeded in 2015.

At the sentencing, the US attorney’s office said in a statement: “The sheer amount of unnecessary human loss and suffering attributable to the defendants’ criminal conduct on 16 September 2007 is staggering.”

After news of the pardon emerged on Tuesday night, Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for one of the four pardoned Blackwater defendants, said: “Paul Slough and his colleagues didn’t deserve to spend one minute in prison. I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.”

The pardons are one of several the US president has granted to American service personnel and contractors accused or convicted of crimes against non-combatants and civilians in war zones. In November last year, he pardoned a former US army commando who was set to stand trial over the killing of a suspected Afghan bomb-maker, and a former army lieutenant convicted of murder for ordering his men to fire at three Afghans.

Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished.

Prosecutors asserted the heavily armed Raven 23 Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine-guns and grenade launchers. Defence lawyers argued their clients returned fire after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents.

The US government said in a memorandum filed after the sentencing: “None of the victims was an insurgent, or posed any threat to the Raven 23 convoy.” The memorandum also contained quotations from relatives of the dead, including Mohammad Kinani, whose nine-year-old son Ali was killed. “That day changed my life forever. That day destroyed me completely,” Kinani said.

Also quoted in the memorandum was David Boslego, a retired US army colonel, who said the massacre was “a grossly excessive use of force” and “grossly inappropriate for an entity whose only job was to provide personal protection to somebody in an armoured vehicle”.

Boslego also said the attack had “a negative effect on our mission, [an] adverse effect … It made our relationship with the Iraqis in general more strained.”

FBI investigators who visited the scene in the following days described it as the “My Lai massacre of Iraq” – a reference to the infamous slaughter of civilian villagers by US troops during the Vietnam war in which only one soldier was convicted.

After the convictions, Blackwater – which changed to Academi after being sold and renamed in 2011 – said it was “relieved that the justice system has completed its investigation into a tragedy that occurred at Nisour Square in 2007 and that any wrongdoing that was carried out has been addressed by our courts.

“The security industry has evolved drastically since those events, and under the direction of new ownership and leadership, Academi has invested heavily in compliance and ethics programmes, training for our employees, and preventative measures to strictly comply with all US and local government laws.”

The 14 victims killed by the Blackwater guards on trial were listed as Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubia’y, Mahassin Mohssen Kadhum Al-Khazali, Osama Fadhil Abbas, Ali Mohammed Hafedh Abdul Razzaq, Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Qasim Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Sa’adi Ali Abbas Alkarkh, Mushtaq Karim Abd Al-Razzaq, Ghaniyah Hassan Ali, Ibrahim Abid Ayash, Hamoud Sa’eed Abttan, Uday Ismail Ibrahiem, Mahdi Sahib Nasir and Ali Khalil Abdul Hussein.

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Warnock supporters in Georgia. (photo: Megan Varner/Getty Images)

Left Grassroots Groups Helped Biden Win Georgia. Now They're Organizing to Flip the Senate.
Nuala Bishari, In These Times
Bishari writes: "With hopes for a progressive agenda on the line, working class-led organizations are going all out to defeat the GOP in Georgia."

n the Novem­ber gen­er­al elec­tion, Geor­gia made head­lines as the state that went from red to blue, earn­ing a statewide win for Joe Biden by just under 12,000 votes. But as Biden pre­pares for his tran­si­tion to the White House, all eyes are once again on Geor­gia. On Jan. 5, two run-off races in the state will deter­mine whether Democ­rats or Repub­li­can will hold major­i­ty in the U.S. Sen­ate. Democ­rats Jon Ossoff and Rev­erend Raphael Warnock are chal­leng­ing incum­bent Repub­li­can Sens. David Per­due and Kel­ly Loef­fler, and the race looks tight.

After an exhaust­ing out­reach effort ahead of the Nov. 3 elec­tion, grass­roots orga­niz­ers and nation­al polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions have teamed up to once again get peo­ple out to the polls. But the strate­gies being employed this time around are dif­fer­ent: No longer is the empha­sis on flip­ping swing vot­ers, but rather on hold­ing deep, per­son­al con­ver­sa­tions in com­mu­ni­ties of col­or, both on their doorsteps and over the phone.

After the gen­er­al elec­tion, Jade Brooks and her col­leagues at SONG Pow­er, a new 501©4 group born out of the LGBTQ social jus­tice orga­ni­za­tion South­ern­ers on New Ground, were drained. With their friends at Geor­gia Lati­no Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) and nation­al Lati­no rights group Mijente, they’d knocked on more than 150,000 doors across Geor­gia over the sum­mer and fall to get out the vote for Biden.

But after Biden squeaked out a vic­to­ry in Geor­gia, while Democ­rats nation­wide failed to pro­duce a “blue wave,” it soon became clear the pos­si­bil­i­ty of flip­ping the Sen­ate would fall to Georgians.

“We’re tired, we’re scrap­py, this is kind of our first rodeo this year,” Brooks, a region­al orga­niz­ing lead with SONG Pow­er, told In These Times. “But we knew there were going to be so many nation­al groups com­ing into Geor­gia, so much mon­ey falling from the sky, what could we real­ly do? We brought it to our mem­bers in Geor­gia, and through a series of con­ver­sa­tions and calls, our mem­bers felt very strong­ly that we couldn’t sit the fight out.”

There’s a lot at stake. Biden’s abil­i­ty to imple­ment his agen­da — from push­ing through nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing poten­tial­ly to the Supreme Court, to pass­ing poli­cies such as fur­ther Covid relief and more expan­sive health­care — will depend heav­i­ly on whether he has a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­ate to work with. If either Ossoff or Warnock lose to their Repub­li­can oppo­nents, Mitch McConnell will retain con­trol over the Sen­ate, and he has already indi­cat­ed his inten­tion to block Biden and the Democ­rats at every turn.

Ear­ly vot­ing has already begun in Geor­gia, and polls show the races run­ning neck-and-neck. A Dec. 22 FiveThir­tyEight poll shows Ossoff hold­ing a 0.4% lead over Per­due and Warnock hold­ing a 0.9% lead over Loeffler.

With the future of the Sen­ate in Georgia’s hands, there has been no short­age of efforts to turn out Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers — both local­ly and nation­al­ly. GLAHR and Mijente set the ambi­tious goal of knock­ing on approx­i­mate­ly 290,000 Lati­nos’ doors across the state ahead of the runoffs. The nation­al youth-led cli­mate mobi­liza­tion group Sun­rise Move­ment holds phonebanks five days a week to gal­va­nize young Geor­gia voters.

Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is being placed on turn­ing out Black vot­ers. The grass­roots group Black Vot­ers Mat­ter is dri­ving a bus around the state, meet­ing vot­ers face-to-face, hand­ing out free meals and host­ing concerts.

“With this lat­est bus tour, we’re send­ing a strong mes­sage across the state of Geor­gia: Black vot­ers made his­to­ry on Elec­tion Day, and we can do it again,” said Black Vot­ers Mat­ter cofounder Cliff Albright in a state­ment. “From the streets of Atlanta to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties like Ware Coun­ty, Black vot­ers in Geor­gia turned out in record num­bers and exer­cised their vot­ing pow­er. Now, we have anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to make our voic­es heard, hold our lead­ers in the Sen­ate account­able, and remind them that we’ve got the power.”

The New Geor­gia Project, found­ed by for­mer Geor­gia con­gressper­son and guber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date Stacey Abrams, has thou­sands of vol­un­teers hit­ting the pave­ment to help peo­ple of col­or vote, with plans to reach one mil­lion house­holds before the polls close.

Nse Ufot, CEO of the New Geor­gia Project, believes the Black vote is key to flip­ping the Sen­ate. “The oppor­tu­ni­ty to impact the bal­ance of pow­er in the Sen­ate is absolute­ly dri­ving Geor­gians to come back out and vote,” she said on the pod­cast Runoff the Jew­els ear­li­er this month. “When we talk about this mul­tira­cial, mul­ti­eth­nic, mul­ti­lin­gual, multi­gen­er­a­tional pro­gres­sive major­i­ty that exists in the deep South, I want peo­ple to know that it’s real.”

SONG Pow­er, mean­while, has teamed up with People’s Action, a nation­al grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion that cen­ters the demands of work­ing-class peo­ple of col­or. Togeth­er, they cre­at­ed a robust plan to place thou­sands of “deep can­vass­ing” calls to rur­al Geor­gians ahead of the elec­tion, with the goal of lis­ten­ing to their expe­ri­ences — and inspir­ing them to hit the polls in sup­port of Ossoff and Warnock.

“There’s so many nation­al groups that are com­ing in with calls and texts, and frankly, they have more bells and whis­tles than us,” Brooks said. “So we leaned into part­ner­ships. The phone can­vass­ing we’re doing with People’s Action is real­ly cool because it enables us to have vol­un­teers from all over the coun­try do some­thing meaningful. “

Dan­ny Tim­pona, People’s Action’s deputy direc­tor of dis­trib­uted orga­niz­ing, was relieved when the group con­nect­ed with SONG Pow­er. People’s Action ral­lies peo­ple across the coun­try to cam­paign and phonebank for races through close col­lab­o­ra­tions with on-the-ground groups in each state. But despite hav­ing mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions in more than 30 states across the coun­try, Geor­gia wasn’t one of them.

“That in itself was like ‘oh my gosh, how are we going to do this?’” Tim­pona recalled. People’s Action began reach­ing out to pro­gres­sive orga­ni­za­tions led by peo­ple of col­or, for what Tim­pona said was an intense two-week vet­ting process.

They were cau­tious about not want­i­ng to para­chute in. “It was an explorato­ry phase first of all, to see ‘are we need­ed?’ If we are need­ed, what pro­vides the best list for folks who are orga­niz­ing on the ground?” Tim­pona said.

In the end, SONG Pow­er was one of sev­er­al orga­ni­za­tions People’s Action teamed up with to devel­op a can­vass­ing plan.

For SONG Pow­er, the help was appre­ci­at­ed, and not only to get them through this next elec­tion. The part­ner­ship is grow­ing their con­tact list, enhanc­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to mobi­lize Geor­gians for future down-bal­lot races.

“We want to be able to call peo­ple after Jan­u­ary,” Brooks said. “After some of this nation­al atten­tion moves away from Geor­gia, we want to make sure they get a call from a local­ly-root­ed group invit­ing them into the move­ment long term.”

The col­lab­o­ra­tion goes beyond just the shar­ing of con­tacts and tech­nol­o­gy. Due to the nature of deep can­vass­ing — where phone calls can require in-depth knowl­edge of regions, pol­i­tics and local issues — People’s Action’s vol­un­teers need­ed prop­er train­ing. Togeth­er with SONG Pow­er, they devel­oped an hour-long train­ing video that teach­es callers how to lis­ten, and not just regur­gi­tate facts. Those well-trained vol­un­teers make calls with People’s Action three days a week, while SONG Pow­er runs small­er phonebanks to its exist­ing base.

“We real­ly lean into the fact that facts don’t change people’s minds, emo­tions and sto­ries and val­ues do,” Tim­pona explained. “It’s so rare for peo­ple to actu­al­ly feel lis­tened to, and to think that this per­son on the end of the line actu­al­ly cares. Our vol­un­teers real­ly take a lot of pride in cre­at­ing that space and know­ing how impor­tant this is not just for this elec­tion, but for every­thing we’re nav­i­gat­ing dur­ing the pandemic.”

In some ways, the piv­ot to focus­ing on just one state has made things simpler.

“In the fall we called into a dif­fer­ent state each night,” Tim­pona said. “It was like, Mon­day is Wis­con­sin, Tues­day is North Car­oli­na, Wednes­day is Penn­syl­va­nia, Thurs­day is Michi­gan, and Fri­day is Min­neso­ta. So in one sense it’s a lit­tle eas­i­er now, because we have more focus. But this is also a new state, new issue.”

With all eyes on Geor­gia, the scale of oper­a­tions is enor­mous. Ahead of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, People’s Action con­tact­ed 47.3 mil­lion vot­ers in bat­tle­ground states and had more than 280,000 in-depth phone conversations.

Ahead of the runoffs, the group plans to call 1 mil­lion peo­ple in rur­al Geor­gia alone.

Now that ear­ly vot­ing has start­ed, the strat­e­gy has shift­ed slight­ly to active­ly turn­ing out voters.

“There just hasn’t been infor­ma­tion about where peo­ple can go to vote, where ear­ly vot­ing is, should they return bal­lots in the mail, or should they return it in per­son,” Tim­pona said. “We’re real­ly dig­ging in and mak­ing sure peo­ple have all the answers they’re look­ing for, and all the infor­ma­tion they need.”

On the ground in Geor­gia, Brooks said SONG Pow­er plans to con­tin­ue its can­vass­ing efforts until the polls close on elec­tion day.

“Dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion there were tons of groups giv­ing rides to the polls,” she said. “We may just offer resources to oth­er groups that are sole­ly focused on that. But we do have this old church bus that’s kind of bro­ken down… maybe we’ll see if we can put that lit­tle beast in formation.”

Regard­less of the results on Jan. 5, both Tim­pona and Brooks see this mas­sive out­reach effort in Geor­gia as a way to build future relationships.

“It’s a very strong thread through all the con­ver­sa­tions that we’re hav­ing that a lot of peo­ple don’t feel a strong con­nec­tion with how the Sen­ate could actu­al­ly impact their life,” Tim­pona said. “Whether it’s rent, util­i­ties, cli­mate jus­tice, a job in health­care – there’s under­stand­ably the ques­tion ‘what can the gov­ern­ment do for me?’

“That’s the great thing about part­ner­ing. We know now that we can hand off the peo­ple that we talk to to race-build­ing, pow­er-build­ing orga­ni­za­tions after the elec­tion, so these con­ver­sa­tions we’re hav­ing are not just to turn out votes for Jan­u­ary 5.”

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People participate in a ceremony in Acteal in October 2020 to commemorate the 1997 massacre. (photo: Changiz M. Varzi/nacla)

Mexico: 23 Years of Impunity for the Perpetrators of the Acteal Massacre
Changiz M. Varzi, NACLA
Excerpt: "Survivors of the Acteal massacre have rejected the Mexican government's offer of compensation. They demand that the perpetrators and masterminds be brought to justice."

n a hut with almost no furniture, a group of Tzotzil people gather around a long wooden table and on the dirt floor, eating their breakfast: a bowl of beans, corn tortilla, habanero chili, and a big cup of coffee. The old wooden table and chairs are blackened with the smoke rising from a ground stove, where a pot of beans and a pot of coffee sit atop the fire.

Early in the morning of the 22nd of every month, young and old Tzotzil people pack this hut in Acteal, a small village in the highlands of Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas. Hailing from different communities of Chiapas’s Chenalhó municipality, they are all members of La Organización Sociedad Civil Las Abejas de Acteal, also known as Las Abejas. First, they eat their collective breakfast. Then they change out of their jeans and hoodies and into their traditional Tzotzil clothes to hold their monthly memorial of the 1997 Acteal massacre.

On December 22, 1997, over 100 armed men from the Máscara Roja paramilitary group entered Acteal, part of Las Abejas, and slaughtered 45 Tzotzil men, women and children, including four pregnant women. The paramilitaries sought to crush Indigenous communities suspected of supporting the Zapatista movement. Las Abejas, a pacifist Christian organization founded two years before the 1994 Zapatista uprising, opposed the Zapatistas’ use of armed struggle, but supported the movement’s goals of autonomy and Indigenous control over land.

Two decades later, not much has changed for the survivors and the family members of the victims of the massacre. Las Abejas, meaning The Bees, have held their monthly ceremony for the past 23 years, seeking justice. Meanwhile the perpetrators and masterminds of the massacre are still at large, enjoying unspoken impunity. In the aftermath of the massacre, 79 people were convicted and handed long-term prison sentences for their participation in the killings. However, the Mexican Supreme Court ordered their release individually and in groups in the following years.

“No matter what the government does, we will continue our fight for justice,” Simón Pedro Pérez López, a Tzotzil community leader and a member of the board of directors of Las Abejas, told me. “All we want is justice. We want the trial of those who ordered and carried out the massacre, and that the government recognize its full responsibility for the massacre.”

“No” to the Government’s Offer

On September 3, after 23 years of pressure from Mexican and international human rights activists, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration accepted that the federal government was responsible for failing to prevent the killing of unarmed civilians in Acteal. According to declassified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency documents, the Mexican military tacitly backed paramilitary groups in Chiapas at the time of the massacre. However, instead of opening a new investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice, López Obrador’s government offered a friendly settlement to the families of the victims.

In an official apology ceremony, Alejandro Encinas, the Mexican deputy interior minister responsible for human rights, said to Tzotzil community leaders: “Accept our solidarity with your causes and our commitment to fulfill our inherent responsibilities...never again another Acteal.”

Tired of over two decades of injustice, a group of Tzotzil victims and survivors separated from Las Abejas and accepted the government’s offer of financial compensation. The government announced that it would close the case.

However, Las Abejas has firmly rejected the government’s solution.

“Fatigue has not defeated us, weariness has not bent us, the blows have not knocked us down, and hopelessness has not seized our hearts,” Las Abejas wrote in a statement rejecting the government’s offer.

“No promise of economic compensation is enough to make us settle for a public apology that does not get at the root of the truth, that allows all those responsible to go unpunished, and that therefore does not guarantee that another Acteal will not happen again in our territories. We have not settled for this crumb of justice,” the statement continued.

Pérez Lopéz believes that the López Obrador administration’s formal apology is not sincere and that by paying compensation, the government wants to silence demands for justice.

“Here in Chiapas, the government has done nothing to end the presence of the paramilitaries and still our lives are at risk,” Pérez Lopéz said. “We see with our own eyes that the sons of those who killed our families are now joining the ranks of new paramilitary groups, harassing Indigenous communities. The government is lying, they are still systematically killing the Indigenous people in Chiapas.”

Other members of Las Abejas suggest that the government’s friendly settlement is a part of a larger strategy to manipulate the survivors of the massacre in an attempt to close the case of the Acteal massacre at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Las Abejas filed the case against the Mexican state in 2005.

“Obviously the government wants to close the case, but we don’t accept that,” Guadalupe Vázquez Luna, a survivor of the massacre stressed. Vázquez Luna was 10 when the paramilitaries entered Acteal and killed her parents and five siblings. Now she is an Indigenous rights activist and an outspoken advocate of Las Abejas members who are seeking justice.

“The government’s apology will not give life to our parents, brothers, sisters and children whom we lost in the massacre. We don’t need an apology, we want to see those who were responsible for the massacre punished,” Vázquez Luna said.

Vázquez Luna and other members of Las Abejas demand prosecution of those who played a vital role in the massacre, including the politicians who supported and armed the paramilitaries during the 1990s. Former president Ernesto Zedillo is on the top of their list. He is known as one of the main supporters of the army’s Campaign Plan Chiapas 94 that paved the way for paramilitaries to do the government’s dirty work of suppressing Indigenous resistance.

“Ernesto Zedillo is still enjoying lots of benefits. He has a high position and receives millions of pesos, while we are waiting for justice. He should be in prison,” Vázquez Luna said. “What kind of justice is this, that you carry out a massacre and then you just apologize?”

Fear of More Massacres

Human rights lawyers have also condemned the government for offering compensation without holding the perpetrators accountable, suggesting that this provides greater impunity.

“Las Abejas are simply saying that they are not going to sell their dead,” Pedro Faro Navarro, director of Fray Bartolome Human Rights center of San Cristobal de las Casas (Frayba), told me.

“The government has offered a public apology, but has not yet accepted the state’s role in the massacre. This government is putting all the blame on previous administrations, instead of accepting the responsibility that the Mexican state had in this massacre,” he added.

According to Frayba’s investigations, the army forces in bases close to Acteal could hear the sounds of shooting during the massacre, but they did nothing to stop the killing. The massacre lasted several hours and even the police forces stationed near Acteal did not intervene. This kind of complicity is a widely known counterinsurgency strategy deployed by the Mexican government.

“Yet the government has not said anything about its role in counterinsurgency and the presence of paramilitaries in the region, which is still going on. The paramilitaries in this region have had well-established military organizations and strategies, with diffused linkages with the state. It is diffused, but it [still] exists,” Faro explained.

Twenty-three years after the Acteal massacre, Indigenous residents of Aldam, a village 12 miles away from Acteal, are now under sporadic attack by paramilitary groups. This strategy mirrors the violence Acteal suffered before the massacre. Human rights activists in Chiapas suggest that accepting the friendly settlement for the Acteal massacre would encourage the paramilitaries to continue their attacks on Indigenous communities in Aldama with no fear of punishment. Activists such as Vázquez Luna are worried that if the impunity continues, a new generation could suffer the same fate.

“We were raised without our parents and we lived without having a family,” Vázquez Luna said. “This is exactly what we don’t want to happen to other Indigenous communities.”

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A giraffe in the Nairobi National Park with the Nairobi skyline in the background in Nairobi, Kenya on Sept. 27, 2017. (photo: Buena Vista Images/Stone/Getty Images)

Nearly 90% of Land Animals Could Lose Habitat by 2050, Study Finds
Emily Denny, EcoWatch
Denny writes: "Unless global food systems are transformed, the world could face severe ecological damage in just a few decades. A recent study in Nature Sustainability suggests that nearly 90% of land animals could lose some of their habitat by 2050 if current agricultural systems continue as is."

"We need to change what we eat and how it is produced if we are going to save wildlife on a global scale," said David Williams, one of the study's lead authors, according to The Guardian. Without a proactive policy, current agricultural systems could cause the loss of millions of square kilometers of natural ecosystems.

From eating less meat to reducing food waste, the study examined how potential changes could make an impact on food systems in various geographical regions.

The team from the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford designed a geographically specific model for agricultural land use, adding outputs with species-specific habitat preferences for almost 20,000 species of terrestrial vertebrates, according to the study.

"Nearly 1,300 species are likely to lose at least a quarter of their remaining habitat, and hundreds could lose at least half," Williams said according to Science Daily. "This makes them far more likely to go extinct."

The majority of this loss is projected to take place in sub-Saharan Africa, the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil, eastern Argentina, and parts of South and Southeast Asia, Yale Environment 360 reported.

The study provides both a tool for scientists to estimate how agriculture expansion will contribute to species and biodiversity loss and suggests solutions food systems could undertake for the transformation necessary. The study's results "highlight the importance of proactive efforts to safeguard biodiversity by reducing demand for agricultural land," Michael Clark, another lead author of the study said, as reported by Science Daily.

"The good news is that if we make ambitious changes to the food system, then we can prevent almost all these habitat losses," he added.

The study proposed a multi-pronged technique that is region-specific, suggesting closing crop yield gaps, promoting healthier diets, curtailing food loss and waste, and implementing early planning when it comes to land-use to avoid conflict between food production and habitat protection.

"No one approach is sufficient on its own. But with global coordination and rapid action, it should be possible to provide healthy diets for the global population in 2050 without major habitat losses," Clark said according to The Guardian.

The study's publication comes at the same time 135 groups called on president-elect Joe Biden to sign an executive order, urging him to prioritize the extinction crisis as a threat to humanity in the U.S., according to a press release by the Center for Biological Diversity.

"The unsustainable exploitation of wildlife can have profound consequences, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, which almost certainly came about due to the trade in wildlife," the proposed executive order states.

Among its goals to protect 30% of America's lands and waters by 2030, the proposed order requires all federal agencies, including the Department of Agriculture, to review how its actions cause harm to endangered species and biodiversity.

The order calls for federal agencies to develop conservation programs that comply with Section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act, which states that any action authorized by a federal agency must not "jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat."

When nearly 75% of global lands and 66% of ocean areas have been altered by people, and nearly 25% of global greenhouse emissions are attributed to agriculture, studies like the one published by Nature Sustainability and demands by the Center for Biological Diversity could motivate drastic change in food systems and promote sustainable land management, reversing both international and national trends towards ecological destruction via their agricultural systems.

"The time for half measures has passed," Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity said in a press release. "President Biden must take bold, immediate action to end extinction because the survival of not just wildlife but humanity is now at stake."

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