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  34. <title>Iran&#8217;s Death Row Recording Star </title>
  35. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/irans-death-row-recording-star/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=irans-death-row-recording-star</link>
  36. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/irans-death-row-recording-star/#respond</comments>
  38. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kamin Mohammadi]]></dc:creator>
  39. <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 22:53:47 +0000</pubDate>
  40. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  41. <category><![CDATA[Belief & Religion]]></category>
  42. <category><![CDATA[Countering Violence Against Women]]></category>
  43. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
  44. <category><![CDATA[Global Voices]]></category>
  45. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
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  47. <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category>
  48. <category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>
  49. <category><![CDATA[death penalty]]></category>
  50. <category><![CDATA[iran]]></category>
  51. <category><![CDATA[mahsa amini]]></category>
  52. <category><![CDATA[Toomaj Salehi]]></category>
  53. <category><![CDATA[woman life freedom]]></category>
  54. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296101</guid>
  55.  
  56. <description><![CDATA[<p>A political rapper faces the death penalty amid a fresh crackdown on women. </p>
  57. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/irans-death-row-recording-star/">Iran&#8217;s Death Row Recording Star </a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  58. ]]></description>
  59. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="has-drop-cap">Toomaj Salehi raps about subjects not often publicly discussed in the Islamic Republic of Iran. His hard-hitting songs touch on child poverty, discrimination against minorities and regime corruption, often accompanied by videos that depict him confronting regime clerics. Social justice themes are common in the “rap-e Farsi” genre that arose in Iran in the 1990s, but few have been as bold as Salehi. A Persian-rapping Tupac Shakur, Salehi is so direct in his criticisms of the regime, some have assumed he must live abroad; when his first big hit, “Rat Hole,”<em> </em>landed in 2021, he had to do an Instagram Live to prove he actually lived in Iran. </p><p>On April 24, Salehi received a death sentence from the Revolutionary Court of Isfahan for the crimes of rapping in support of the Woman Life Freedom movement and posting videos of himself at protests. </p><figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">
  60. <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
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  62. </div>
  63. </figure><p>When the women-led protests broke out in September 2022 — sparked by the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini by the Morality Police for “bad hijab” — the Woman Life Freedom movement swept across Iran. Huge crowds took to the streets and women publicly burned their headscarves. Salehi was instantly vocal in his support for the protests, which he attended and filmed. Nine months after being brutally arrested in October 2022, he was sentenced to six years and three months in prison; only a Supreme Court ruling spared him a death sentence. Upon his release on bail in November 2023, Salehi  made a video describing the physical and mental torture he suffered during his imprisonment — mostly in solitary confinement — resulting in broken fingers, arms, legs and teeth. Though visibly emaciated, he remained defiant and called out the Iranian regime for fabricating a video showing him apologizing for his actions. He reassured his fans that he was unrepentant and described plans for an operation to fix a broken leg that had healed badly. He talked of the future and of continuing to resist the regime.</p><p>Within two weeks of releasing the video, Salehi was again brutally arrested, with reports of police carting him away covered in blood. When the Revolutionary Court handed down the death sentence against him last week, protests erupted across Iran calling for his release. The rapper has become a symbol of the people’s struggle, his songs anthems of protest. His words and image cover walls in Iran’s cities and “trees of hope” have been planted in honor of a self-description in one of his best-loved raps. Some of the signs beg for international support to save him from execution. Imprisoned human rights activist and Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi has called for an international campaign to save Salehi. “Toomaj Salehi epitomizes the resounding voice of the Woman Life Freedom movement and its anthem,” she said from her own prison cell. “His execution would signify the death of our vibrant movement.”</p><figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio">
  64. <div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
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  66. </div>
  67. </figure><p>The regime is fighting back. On April 25, Milad Alavi, a journalist for Shargh newspaper, was summoned to the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office for publishing a video of people’s reactions to Salehi’s sentence. Many others have been silenced with threats of harm to themselves and their families. A new crackdown on women’s dress, meanwhile, has been in effect since April 13 under a national action plan called “Noor,” resulting in yet more videos of women again being forcefully arrested and abused for violations. Female university students have been targeted, as pressure intensifies on civil rights activists, dissenters, cultural figures and female political prisoners. Mohammadi has spearheaded a call to document and amplify these abuses on social media using the hashtag “#WarAgainstWomen.”</p><figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left">
  68. <blockquote>
  69. <p>Within two weeks of releasing the video, Salehi was again brutally arrested, with reports of police carting him away covered in blood.</p>
  70. </blockquote>
  71. </figure><p>The women of Iran remain defiant. They go out without the mandatory headscarf and resist arrest by shouting, screaming and kicking. Crowds flock to film and post online abuses meted out on the streets. As operation Noor gains traction, a university student from Isfahan who goes by the name “Effy” shared footage of heavily veiled women from the Morality Police patrolling Naqshe Jahan square, circulating among families, couples and groups of friends enjoying the weekend’s balmy spring weather. “The Morality Police are back in force and, of course, we are aware of them, but remember we are also used to this,” she told me. “All my life I have seen these people proliferate when it’s coming into summer.” When I ask her if she is scared, she laughs. “The people of Iran are tough. To be honest, we are more worried about the economy, how to afford bread and if there is going to be a war with Israel.”</p><span id="block_d12637fcf1ce9e6a7b461697f8ae648a" class="td-solutions-box-block wp-td-block relative block max-w-full border-4 border-black p-6 !my-12 !md:my-6 w-[350px] md:inline md:float-right md:ml-5">
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  75. <p><em>To join the campaign to amplify Toomaj Salehi’s name, music and story, use </em><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FreeToomaj?src=hashtag_click" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><em>#freetoomaj</em></a></p>
  76. </span>
  77. </span>
  78. <p>A similar sentiment was recently echoed in Iran’s Etemad newspaper in an article titled, “Rising Costs, Inflation, and Unemployment Strain Public Nerves, Don’t Squeeze the People Further.” The article boldly criticizes the authorities for failing to address the economic hardship and rising social pressure on citizens, exemplified by skyrocketing inflation that has seen the price of lentils increase 71% and white beans an extraordinary 130% since January. Mismanagement of the economy, corruption and blatant inequality is enough to fire people up against the regime. Police abuse and the discriminatory hijab laws only add to the discontent.</p><p>As Salehi rapped in his controversial song ‘Normal’, “A laborer’s annual wage is worth a dinner abroad / Here, people are just alive, they don’t have a life.”</p>
  79. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/irans-death-row-recording-star/">Iran&#8217;s Death Row Recording Star </a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  80. ]]></content:encoded>
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  90. <title>Civil Liberties Groups Decry Bill Redefining ‘Antisemitism&#8217;</title>
  91. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/civil-liberties-groups-decry-house-passage-of-bill-redefining-antisemitism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=civil-liberties-groups-decry-house-passage-of-bill-redefining-antisemitism</link>
  92. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/civil-liberties-groups-decry-house-passage-of-bill-redefining-antisemitism/#respond</comments>
  94. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Brett Wilkins /  Common Dreams]]></dc:creator>
  95. <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 16:16:07 +0000</pubDate>
  96. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  97. <category><![CDATA[Belief & Religion]]></category>
  98. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
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  100. <category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
  101. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  102. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  103. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  104. <category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
  105. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
  106. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  107. <category><![CDATA[antisemitism]]></category>
  108. <category><![CDATA[freedom of speech]]></category>
  109. <category><![CDATA[IHRA]]></category>
  110. <category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
  111. <category><![CDATA[zionism]]></category>
  112. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296069</guid>
  113.  
  114. <description><![CDATA[<p>The language of the bill conflates legitimate criticism of the Israeli government with bigotry against Jewish people.</p>
  115. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/civil-liberties-groups-decry-house-passage-of-bill-redefining-antisemitism/">Civil Liberties Groups Decry Bill Redefining ‘Antisemitism&#8217;</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  116. ]]></description>
  117. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  118. <p><strong>House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly</strong> Wednesday to approve legislation directing the U.S. Department of Education to consider a dubious definition of antisemitism, despite warnings from Jewish-led groups that the measure speciously conflates legitimate criticism of the Israeli government with bigotry against Jewish people.</p>
  119.  
  120.  
  121.  
  122. <p>House members approved the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/6090/text" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Antisemitism Awareness Act</a>—bipartisan legislation introduced last year by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Max Miller (R-Ohio), and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in the lower chamber and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate—by a&nbsp;<a href="https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024172" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">vote of 320-91</a>.</p>
  123.  
  124.  
  125.  
  126. <p>Both progressive Democrats and far-right Republicans opposed language in the bill. The former <a href="https://twitter.com/RepSaraJacobs/status/1785779112071557499" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">objected</a> to conflating criticism of <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/israel" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Israel</a> with hatred of Jews, while the latter <a href="https://twitter.com/RepMattGaetz/status/1785762505345691786" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">bristled</a> at labeling Christian scripture—which posits that Jews killed Jesus—as antisemitic.</p>
  127.  
  128.  
  129.  
  130. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  131. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">House passes GOP-led Antisemitism Awareness Act — which mandates the Department of Education to use contested IHRA definition of antisemitism — by bipartisan 320-91 vote. <br><br>70 Dems voted against. <br><br>Here’s why <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2b07.png" alt="⬇" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /><a href="https://t.co/VEGNC0AbYm" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">https://t.co/VEGNC0AbYm</a> <a href="https://t.co/d3qX8bU57T" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/d3qX8bU57T</a></p>&mdash; Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) <a href="https://twitter.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1785775817353507053?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">May 1, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  132. </div></figure>
  133.  
  134.  
  135.  
  136. <p>&#8220;Antisemitism is the hatred of Jews. Unfortunately, one doesn&#8217;t need to look far to find it these days. But the supporters of this bill are looking in the wrong places,&#8221; Hadar Susskind, president and CEO of the Jewish-led group Americans for Peace Now,&nbsp;<a href="https://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=43112" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">said</a>&nbsp;following Wednesday&#8217;s vote.</p>
  137.  
  138.  
  139.  
  140. <p>&#8220;They aren&#8217;t interested in protecting Jews,&#8221; he added. &#8220;They are interested in supporting right-wing views and narratives on Israel and shutting down legitimate questions and criticisms by crying &#8216;antisemite&#8217; at everyone, including Jews&#8221; who oppose Israel&#8217;s far-right government.</p>
  141.  
  142.  
  143.  
  144. <p>&#8220;With this disingenuous effort, House Republicans have failed to seriously address antisemitism,&#8221; Susskind added. &#8220;I hope the Senate does better.&#8221;</p>
  145.  
  146.  
  147.  
  148. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  149. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today the House votes on the gag legislation they&#39;re calling the &quot;Antisemitism Awareness Act&quot;.<br><br>Antisemitism is a serious problem, but codifying a legal definition could have dangerous implications for free speech. <br><br><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f9f5.png" alt="🧵" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /><a href="https://t.co/lU0YhyO3EH" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/lU0YhyO3EH</a></p>&mdash; Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) <a href="https://twitter.com/jewishaction/status/1785700613625467334?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">May 1, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  150. </div></figure>
  151.  
  152.  
  153.  
  154. <p>The legislation—officially H.R. 6090—would require the Department of Education to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism when determining whether alleged harassment is motivated by antisemitic animus and violates&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/TitleVI" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Title VI</a>&nbsp;of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which &#8220;prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance,&#8221; including colleges and universities.</p>
  155.  
  156.  
  157.  
  158. <p>Lawler&#8217;s office&nbsp;<a href="https://lawler.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=931" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">called</a>&nbsp;the proposal &#8220;a key step in calling out antisemitism where it is and ensuring antisemitic hate crimes on college campuses are properly investigated and prosecuted,&#8221; while Gottheimer&nbsp;<a href="https://gottheimer.house.gov/posts/release-gottheimer-helps-lead-bipartisan-bicameral-antisemitism-awareness-act" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">emphasized</a>&nbsp;that &#8220;the IHRA definition underscores that antisemitism includes denying Jewish self-determination to their ancestral homeland of Israel&#8230; and applying double standards to Israel.&#8221;</p>
  159.  
  160.  
  161.  
  162. <p>Critics say that&#8217;s the trouble with the IHRA working definition: It conflates legitimate criticism and condemnation of Israeli policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry, and forces people to accept the legitimacy of a settler-colonial <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/01/new-amnesty-report-outlines-true-extent-israeli-apartheid-regime" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">apartheid state</a> engaged in illegal occupation and a &#8220;<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/watch-live-international-court-of-justice-delivers-ruling-in-israel-genocide-case" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">plausibly</a>&#8221; genocidal war on <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/gaza" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Gaza.</a></p>
  163.  
  164.  
  165.  
  166. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  167. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">ACLU strongly oppose use of the IHRA definition, or any definition of discrimination that threatens to censor or penalize political speech protected by the First Amendment. <br><br>ACLU urges House of Representatives to vote &quot;No&quot; on Anti-semitism Awareness Act. <a href="https://t.co/mQ483eyoKX" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">https://t.co/mQ483eyoKX</a> <a href="https://t.co/SlgUGQHwzy" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/SlgUGQHwzy</a></p>&mdash; Jamil Dakwar (@jdakwar) <a href="https://twitter.com/jdakwar/status/1785700262591463792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">May 1, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  168. </div></figure>
  169.  
  170.  
  171.  
  172. <p>As the ACLU noted last week in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-urges-congress-to-oppose-anti-semitism-awareness-act" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">letter</a>&nbsp;urging lawmakers to reject the legislation:</p>
  173.  
  174.  
  175.  
  176. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
  177. <p>The IHRA working definition&#8230; is overbroad. It equates protected political speech with unprotected discrimination, and enshrining it into regulation would chill the exercise of First Amendment rights and risk undermining the Department of Education&#8217;s legitimate and important efforts to combat discrimination. Criticism of Israel and its policies is political speech, squarely protected by the First Amendment. But the IHRA working definition declares that &#8220;denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor,&#8221; &#8220;drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,&#8221; and &#8220;applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation&#8221; are all examples of antisemitism.</p>
  178. </blockquote>
  179.  
  180.  
  181.  
  182. <p>Jewish Voice for Peace Action&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/JvpAction/status/1785684460970635318" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">slammed</a>&nbsp;what it called IHRA&#8217;s &#8220;controversial and dangerous mis-definition that does not help fight real antisemitism and is only a tool for silencing the movement for Palestinian rights.&#8221;</p>
  183.  
  184.  
  185.  
  186. <p>&#8220;The Israeli government&#8217;s bombardment and siege of Gaza has killed over 34,000 people in six months,&#8221; the group said on social media. &#8220;Congress must stop attacking the students and faculty members who are trying to stop this genocide, and instead focus on ending U.S. complicity in Israel&#8217;s attacks.&#8221;</p>
  187.  
  188.  
  189.  
  190. <p>Israel&#8217;s Gaza onslaught has sparked a wave of nonviolent student-led protests <a href="https://twitter.com/sandeepbak/status/1785704856478536008" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">across the United States</a> and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/uk-universities-israel" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">around the world.</a> Some of these protests have been <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/university-of-texas-gaza-protests" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">violently repressed</a> by police, while anti-genocide activists including Jews have been branded &#8220;antisemitic&#8221; for condemning Israeli crimes or defending Palestinians&#8217; legal right to resist them.</p>
  191.  
  192.  
  193.  
  194. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  195. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sending in militarized police and snipers to stop students from exercising their First Amendment rights is truly disgusting.<br><br>Why are my colleagues and the mainstream media more outraged over these anti-war protests than they are about the over 35,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza? <a href="https://t.co/EwLqRrS2we" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/EwLqRrS2we</a></p>&mdash; Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepRashida/status/1785748760368156757?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">May 1, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  196. </div></figure>
  197.  
  198.  
  199.  
  200. <p>Americans for Peace Now said that while it is &#8220;deeply concerned about the escalating antisemitism in the United States and globally,&#8221; the legislation &#8220;poses a significant threat to free speech and open discourse.&#8221;</p>
  201.  
  202.  
  203.  
  204. <p>&#8220;Equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism is a tactic used to stifle important discussions on Israeli policies and actions, thereby hindering the broader effort to combat true instances of hatred and discrimination against Jewish communities,&#8221; the group added.</p>
  205.  
  206.  
  207.  
  208. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;Equating criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism is a tactic used to stifle important discussions on Israeli policies and actions.&#8221;</p></blockquote></figure>
  209.  
  210.  
  211.  
  212. <p>Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Centre for the Study of Hate and lead drafter of the IHRA working definition,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/how-the-biden-administration-should-approach-the-issue-of-antisemitism/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">warned</a>&nbsp;years ago that &#8220;Jewish groups have used the definition as a weapon to say anti-Zionist expressions are inherently antisemitic and must be suppressed.&#8221;</p>
  213.  
  214.  
  215.  
  216. <p>&#8220;Imagine if&nbsp;<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/tag/black-lives-matter" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Black Lives Matter</a>&nbsp;said the most important thing the [Biden] administration could do to remedy systemic racism is adopt a definition of racism, and that definition included this example: opposition to affirmative action,&#8221; Stern wrote in 2020.</p>
  217.  
  218.  
  219.  
  220. <p>&#8220;Obviously, sometimes opposition to affirmative action is racist and sometimes it is not,&#8221; he added. &#8220;The debate about systemic racism would be changed to a free speech fight, and those with reasonable concerns about affirmative action correctly upset that the state was branding them racist.&#8221;</p>
  221. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/civil-liberties-groups-decry-house-passage-of-bill-redefining-antisemitism/">Civil Liberties Groups Decry Bill Redefining ‘Antisemitism&#8217;</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  222. ]]></content:encoded>
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  225. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  231. <item>
  232. <title>Congress Shines a Light on Big Oil’s Long Campaign of Climate Denial</title>
  233. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/congress-shines-a-light-on-big-oils-decades-long-campaign-of-climate-denial/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=congress-shines-a-light-on-big-oils-decades-long-campaign-of-climate-denial</link>
  234. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/congress-shines-a-light-on-big-oils-decades-long-campaign-of-climate-denial/#respond</comments>
  236. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Adam M. Lowenstein /  DeSmog]]></dc:creator>
  237. <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 15:57:03 +0000</pubDate>
  238. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  239. <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category>
  240. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
  241. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
  242. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  243. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  244. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  245. <category><![CDATA[chevron]]></category>
  246. <category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category>
  247. <category><![CDATA[congress]]></category>
  248. <category><![CDATA[fossil fuels]]></category>
  249. <category><![CDATA[oil and gas industry]]></category>
  250. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296063</guid>
  251.  
  252. <description><![CDATA[<p>Fossil fuel industry efforts to delay inquiries highlight its sense of impunity – and echo tactics used to obstruct climate action and deceive the public.</p>
  253. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/congress-shines-a-light-on-big-oils-decades-long-campaign-of-climate-denial/">Congress Shines a Light on Big Oil’s Long Campaign of Climate Denial</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  254. ]]></description>
  255. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  256. <p><strong>Oil and gas companies</strong> and their top trade groups were aware for decades that carbon emissions contribute to climate change, according to a scathing new report from congressional investigators. Moreover, industry giants knew that many of the technologies they presented publicly as solutions to the climate crisis – such as algae-based biofuels and carbon capture and storage (CCS) – were neither as green nor as feasible as they promised, the study reveals.</p>
  257.  
  258.  
  259.  
  260. <p>The Senate Budget Committee and Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability published the&nbsp;<a href="https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/new-joint-bicameral-staff-report-reveals-big-oils-campaign-climate-denial" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">report</a>&nbsp;and related documents on April 30, three years after launching a joint&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.com/2021/10/29/congress-exxonmobil-shell-bp-chevron-american-petroleum-institute-climate-disinformation/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">investigation</a>&nbsp;of Shell, Chevron, BP, ExxonMobil, and two leading industry trade groups..</p>
  261.  
  262.  
  263.  
  264. <p>Fossil fuel obstructionism has evolved “from denial to duplicity,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in a May 1 congressional hearing based on the report.</p>
  265.  
  266.  
  267.  
  268. <p>Both the hearing and the report capture what Whitehouse described as “climate denial lite,” in which the industry pivots “to pretending it is taking climate change seriously, while secretly undermining its own publicly stated goals.”</p>
  269.  
  270.  
  271.  
  272. <p>The investigation reveals that for ExxonMobil and other leading fossil fuel companies in the report, the <em>perception</em> of taking some sort of action on climate appears to have been as high a priority as actually taking action.</p>
  273.  
  274.  
  275.  
  276. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Fossil fuel obstructionism has evolved “from denial to duplicity,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in a May 1 congressional hearing based on the report.</p></blockquote></figure>
  277.  
  278.  
  279.  
  280. <p>For example, for years, Exxon sought to associate its brand with algae-based biofuels. In a 2019 <a href="https://www.ispot.tv/ad/ovGn/exxon-mobil-algae-potential" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">video</a>, the company claimed these biofuels “would one day power planes, propel ships, and fuel trucks – and cut their emissions in half.”</p>
  281.  
  282.  
  283.  
  284. <p>Between 2009 and 2023, Exxon spent some $175 million on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.com/2019/03/22/paris-oil-exxon-chevron-bp-total-shell-billion-climate-lobbying-advertising-influencemap/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">algae-related marketing</a>&nbsp;like this video – almost half as much as the company spent working on the technology. (Exxon and other industry leaders largely&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.com/2023/03/23/big-oil-algae-biofuel-funding-cut-exxonmobil/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">stopped</a>&nbsp;funding for algae biofuel research by 2023.)</p>
  285.  
  286.  
  287.  
  288. <p>Even as the company publicly touted algae biofuels as a climate solution, the company knew the technology remained unproven – and, moreover, that Exxon was not investing nearly enough money if it were serious about developing algae as a viable technology.</p>
  289.  
  290.  
  291.  
  292. <p>In an&nbsp;<a href="https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-oversight.house.gov/files/a/exxon-documents/EM-HCOR3-00084836.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">email</a>&nbsp;made public by the committee, an Exxon employee noted that one of the company’s executives had “made comments about us getting too far out there on the original algae ads.”</p>
  293.  
  294.  
  295.  
  296. <p>In an Exxon document released by House investigators with the header “Algae Biofuels Program Talking Points,” the company noted, “ExxonMobil’s analysis has concluded that final development and broad deployment of algae-based biofuels by the company would require future investments of billions of dollars” – orders of magnitude more than the $350 million that Exxon eventually spent.</p>
  297.  
  298.  
  299.  
  300. <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-repeating-patterns">Repeating Patterns</h3>
  301.  
  302.  
  303.  
  304. <p>Congressional investigators identified a similar pattern in industry responses to a 2019 decision by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.desmog.com/andrew-wheeler/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Andrew Wheeler</a>, then the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Donald Trump, to roll back a rule designed to reduce methane emissions.</p>
  305.  
  306.  
  307.  
  308. <p>Internally, BP agreed with Wheeler’s decision. In a 2019 <a href="https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-oversight.house.gov/files/a/bp-documents/BPA_HCOR_00341864.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">email</a> published by the committee, one executive noted that Wheeler’s “legal theory … for rolling back direct regulation of methane” was “aligned with our thinking.” The <a href="https://www.desmog.com/american-petroleum-institute/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">American Petroleum Institute</a> (API), the leading trade association for the oil and gas industry, which <a href="https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/sustainability/our-participation-in-trade-associations-climate-2021-progress-update.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">counts</a> BP as a dues-paying member, lobbied for the rollback.</p>
  309.  
  310.  
  311.  
  312. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Time and again, the biggest oil and gas corporations say one thing for the purposes of public consumption, but do something completely different to protect their profits.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  313.  
  314.  
  315.  
  316. <p>In public, however, BP and other oil giants claimed to be disappointed by the Trump administration’s decision. David Lawler, then-chairman and president of BP America,&nbsp;<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/512097-oil-majors-oppose-epa-methane-rollback/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">said</a>&nbsp;publicly that “direct federal regulation of methane emissions is essential.”</p>
  317.  
  318.  
  319.  
  320. <p>“Time and again, the biggest oil and gas corporations say one thing for the purposes of public consumption, but do something completely different to protect their profits,” Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and one of the leaders of the investigation, said in his prepared&nbsp;<a href="https://www.budget.senate.gov/download/hon-jamie_raskin---testimony---senate-budget-committee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">testimony</a>.</p>
  321.  
  322.  
  323.  
  324. <p>“Company officials will admit the terrifying reality of their business model behind closed doors, but say something entirely different, false, and soothing to the public,” Raskin said.</p>
  325.  
  326.  
  327.  
  328. <p>Yet, even as Raskin and Whitehouse were able to reveal damning new evidence of this corporate doublespeak, they pointed out that a complete public reckoning remained impossible, since the industry refused to fully engage with investigators.</p>
  329.  
  330.  
  331.  
  332. <h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-denying-reality">Denying Reality</h3>
  333.  
  334.  
  335.  
  336. <p>In a pattern that echoes the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long efforts to deny the reality of climate change and, more recently, to portray oil and gas companies as committed to solving the crisis, the four companies and two trade groups that received congressional subpoenas appear to have withheld meaningful information while simultaneously flooding the committees with “hundreds of thousands of generic and non-responsive documents,” Raskin said.</p>
  337.  
  338.  
  339.  
  340. <p>Many documents submitted by the API were almost entirely redacted. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce produced only 24 documents that congressional investigators considered within the scope of the subpoena, including an invitation to a virtual meeting about “the future of natural gas infrastructure.”</p>
  341.  
  342.  
  343.  
  344. <p>Fossil fuel interests “completely obstructed the committees’ investigation,” Raskin said in a video played at the hearing.</p>
  345.  
  346.  
  347.  
  348. <p>During the hearing, this disinformation effort was assisted by congressional Republicans.</p>
  349.  
  350.  
  351.  
  352. <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
  353. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This week, we’re shining a light on the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign of deceit about climate change.<br><br>Tune in Wednesday, May 1st at 9am. <a href="https://t.co/ftDXAnxI5D" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/ftDXAnxI5D</a></p>&mdash; Senate Budget Committee (@SenateBudget) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenateBudget/status/1784932744893526354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">April 29, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  354. </div></figure>
  355.  
  356.  
  357.  
  358. <p>Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) read into the record debunked right-wing claims that carbon dioxide is good for the climate because it is “plant food.”</p>
  359.  
  360.  
  361.  
  362. <p>Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) spent significant time alleging that Dr. Geoffrey Supran, a University of Miami climate disinformation expert who&nbsp;<a href="https://www.budget.senate.gov/download/mr-geoffrey-supran-phd_-testimony---senate-budget-committee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">testified</a>&nbsp;at the hearing, wrote tweets that Supran did not, in fact, write.</p>
  363.  
  364.  
  365.  
  366. <p>“These are not my tweets, these are retweets,” Supran attempted to explain when he was finally shown the tweets, as Kennedy continued to speak over him.</p>
  367.  
  368.  
  369.  
  370. <p>“I’d like to make very clear that this form of character assassination is characteristic of the propaganda techniques of fossil fuel interests,” Supran added.</p>
  371.  
  372.  
  373.  
  374. <p>Supran’s point, however, was mostly obscured by Kennedy’s ongoing hectoring from the committee dais.</p>
  375.  
  376.  
  377.  
  378. <p>In a more productive exchange, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) asked Raskin about the argument Exxon put forth that the investigators’ subpoena was “designed to intrude on ExxonMobil’s First Amendment activities, including its constitutionally protected right to petition the government.”</p>
  379.  
  380.  
  381.  
  382. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Both industries lied to the public and regulators about what they knew about the harms of their products, and when they knew it.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  383.  
  384.  
  385.  
  386. <p>“That would obviously lead to the end of our civil and criminal discovery system, if the first amendment gave you the right&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;to turn over documents,” Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, replied.</p>
  387.  
  388.  
  389.  
  390. <p>“When an objection is made – if it is an extremely unpersuasive, novel, imaginative, unsupported objection – you can always tell, there’s something they really don’t want you to see,” Kaine noted. “I can only imagine the extent of the iceberg under the water that you were not allowed to see.”</p>
  391.  
  392.  
  393.  
  394. <p>The fossil fuel industry’s refusal to respond adequately to congressional subpoenas, while also flooding the committee with what Raskin’s testimony called a “paper blizzard” of some 125,000 “mass emails, newsletters, flyers, and otherwise meaningless fluff documents,” appeared designed to distract investigators and forestall potential legal action against companies and their executives.</p>
  395.  
  396.  
  397.  
  398. <p>“There is certainly an adequate legal foundation for litigation against this industry,” Sharon Eubanks, the former head of the tobacco litigation team at the Department of Justice, and leader of the U.S. government’s racketeering case against Big Tobacco, told members of the committee.</p>
  399.  
  400.  
  401.  
  402. <p>“Both industries lied to the public and regulators about what they knew about the harms of their products, and when they knew it.”</p>
  403. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/congress-shines-a-light-on-big-oils-decades-long-campaign-of-climate-denial/">Congress Shines a Light on Big Oil’s Long Campaign of Climate Denial</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  404. ]]></content:encoded>
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  407. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  412. </item>
  413. <item>
  414. <title>The Media’s Tireless Pursuit of Emotive Conflict in Politics</title>
  415. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-medias-tireless-pursuit-of-emotive-conflict-in-politics/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-medias-tireless-pursuit-of-emotive-conflict-in-politics</link>
  416. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-medias-tireless-pursuit-of-emotive-conflict-in-politics/#respond</comments>
  418. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Reich /  Substack]]></dc:creator>
  419. <pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2024 15:45:46 +0000</pubDate>
  420. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  421. <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category>
  422. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  423. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  424. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  425. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  426. <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category>
  427. <category><![CDATA[Election 2024]]></category>
  428. <category><![CDATA[gaza]]></category>
  429. <category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
  430. <category><![CDATA[joe biden]]></category>
  431. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296055</guid>
  432.  
  433. <description><![CDATA[<p>Mainstream outlets focus on emotions in their coverage. So far, 2024 is presenting a blizzard of it. How should the man who was elected to heal America respond?</p>
  434. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-medias-tireless-pursuit-of-emotive-conflict-in-politics/">The Media’s Tireless Pursuit of Emotive Conflict in Politics</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  435. ]]></description>
  436. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  437. <p><strong>The media focuses on conflict</strong>, discord, and dissension, of which there is an abundance today. This poses a problem for Joe Biden, who works behind the scenes to avoid conflict, discord, and dissension. Yet it’s made-to-order for Trump.</p>
  438.  
  439.  
  440.  
  441. <p>Israel’s war in Gaza has ignited student activism on dozens of campuses nationwide. On Tuesday night, hundreds of police officers in riot gear began arresting anti-war demonstrators at Columbia University, about 20 hours after protesters occupied a campus building — further escalating a crisis that has consumed Columbia and spread to many other universities.</p>
  442.  
  443.  
  444.  
  445. <p>The conflict is splitting the Democratic Party. A recent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24628251-breaking-points-survey-results" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">survey</a>&nbsp;shows that cable news viewers — who tend to be older — are more supportive of Israel than non-cable viewers. People who get their news primarily from social media, YouTube, or podcasts — who tend to be younger — generally believe Israel is committing war crimes.</p>
  446.  
  447.  
  448.  
  449. <p>The conflict is fueling Trump, who yesterday urged college presidents to be tougher on the protesters, whom he called “raging lunatics,” and commended New York City police officers for arresting students. “To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately. Vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students.”</p>
  450.  
  451.  
  452.  
  453. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Israel’s war in Gaza has ignited student activism on dozens of campuses nationwide.</p></blockquote></figure>
  454.  
  455.  
  456.  
  457. <p>Trump’s strong law-and-order message about the protests is at sharp odds with his presidential campaign — which is itself a protest movement centered on his utter disregard for law: his baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, that the January 6 rioters were “patriots,” and that Biden is behind Trump’s current federal and state prosecutions.</p>
  458.  
  459.  
  460.  
  461. <p>Fox News and other right-wing media outlets are amping up these claims, creating a media echo chamber of grievance-based lies.</p>
  462.  
  463.  
  464.  
  465. <p>The rest of the media is transfixed by Trump’s trials, which Trump is using to magnify the alleged conspiracy against him. On Tuesday, Judge Juan M. Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s trial for election fraud, found Trump in contempt of court for attacking witnesses and jurors and warned he might jail Trump if his attacks on the judge, prosecutors, and witnesses continued.</p>
  466.  
  467.  
  468.  
  469. <p>Trump does not rule out the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he&nbsp;<a href="https://time.com/6972021/donald-trump-2024-election-interview/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">says</a>. He&nbsp;<a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109449803240069864" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">claimed</a>&nbsp;on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”</p>
  470.  
  471.  
  472.  
  473. <p>“He’s in full war mode,” says his former adviser and occasional confidant Stephen Bannon. Trump’s sense of the state of the country is “quite apocalyptic. That’s where Trump’s heart is. That’s where his obsession is.”</p>
  474.  
  475.  
  476.  
  477. <p>President Biden, meanwhile, has remained above the fray, seeking to push Netanyahu toward a ceasefire in Gaza while ignoring Trump’s taunts and threats.</p>
  478.  
  479.  
  480.  
  481. <p>Both sources of conflict — over the war in Gaza and over Trump’s prosecutions and allegations — are dominating the media. They are the biggest stories in America.</p>
  482.  
  483.  
  484.  
  485. <p>This poses a challenge for an incumbent president doing everything within his power to keep the ship of state moving steadily forward, and who by temperament and inclination continues to focus on the slow, steady, behind-the-scenes work of governance.</p>
  486.  
  487.  
  488.  
  489. <p>Biden is working behind the scenes to get humanitarian aid to Gaza and stop Netanyahu from ordering an attack on Rafah. In my humble view, he should condition further aid to Israel on a ceasefire in Gaza.</p>
  490.  
  491.  
  492.  
  493. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>He <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/109449803240069864" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">claimed</a> on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  494.  
  495.  
  496.  
  497. <p>Biden still lives in the world of rational, non-emotive messaging. He has been in politics for 50 years. He is steeped in rational, conventional argument — the kind that former President Dwight Eisenhower delivered.</p>
  498.  
  499.  
  500.  
  501. <p>I’m old enough to remember when Eisenhower talked to the nation. Despite Ike’s flat delivery, which was often punctuated with throat-clearing, the public listened and responded, usually positively, because Americans in the 1950s were able to process non-emotive messages. They might disagree with him, but he gave reasons for what he did or proposed and invited voters to deliberate rationally.</p>
  502.  
  503.  
  504.  
  505. <p>The media of that era felt duty-bound to transmit those non-emotive messages.</p>
  506.  
  507.  
  508.  
  509. <p>By “non-emotive,” I mean messages that are straightforward. They don’t cause the recipient to be entertained or inspired, don’t play on fear or bigotry or any other strong negative emotion, don’t stir conflict.</p>
  510.  
  511.  
  512.  
  513. <p>This is no longer the way the media transmits information or how Americans process it. Now, a message has to pack a wallop to be heard.</p>
  514.  
  515.  
  516.  
  517. <p>When it comes to messaging about his accomplishments, neither Biden nor his surrogates do the emotive work that our media ecosystem demands and the American public is now primed to respond to.</p>
  518.  
  519.  
  520.  
  521. <p>When voters tell pollsters they think Trump is “stronger” than Biden on foreign policy or the economy, the “strength” they feel comes from the emotions Trump stirs up — rage, ferocity, vindictiveness, and anger. These emotions are connected to brute strength.</p>
  522.  
  523.  
  524.  
  525. <p>Trump gets attention because the media lives off emotive messaging. The more charged the message, the more likely viewers will stop scrolling. The fiercer the words, the more likely readers will take notice.</p>
  526.  
  527.  
  528.  
  529. <p>Everything Trump says and posts is designed to spur an emotional reaction. His anger, ridicule, and vindictiveness are intended to elicit immediate, passionate responses. They don’t inform. They don’t truthfully explain. They just stir up.<a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff72b56a0-3a7b-4a52-85b3-174d17baa7b4_1760x1258.png" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"></a></p>
  530.  
  531.  
  532.  
  533. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Trump gets attention because the media lives off emotive messaging.</p></blockquote></figure>
  534.  
  535.  
  536.  
  537. <p>Biden projects strength the old-fashioned way — through mature and responsible leadership. But mature and responsible leadership doesn’t break through today’s media and reach today’s public nearly as well as brute strength.</p>
  538.  
  539.  
  540.  
  541. <p>So what’s the answer? Not for Biden (or his Democratic allies and surrogates) to abandon facts, data, analysis, and reasoned argument.</p>
  542.  
  543.  
  544.  
  545. <p>The best response is for Biden to continue the hard work of governing, including putting maximum pressure on Netanyahu to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.</p>
  546.  
  547.  
  548.  
  549. <p>Biden and other Democrats must draw the starkest possible contrast between Trump’s unhinged childishness and Biden’s competent adulthood.</p>
  550.  
  551.  
  552.  
  553. <p>Rather than sell Biden’s policies, sell Biden’s character. Rather than dispute Trump’s arguments, condemn his temperament.</p>
  554.  
  555.  
  556.  
  557. <p>And ask Americans the following question: Do they want a sociopathic infant at the helm again, or a sane grown-up?<a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F8b460b9a-0347-48ff-ac6a-a7a0cd021562_3500x2580.jpeg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"></a></p>
  558. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-medias-tireless-pursuit-of-emotive-conflict-in-politics/">The Media’s Tireless Pursuit of Emotive Conflict in Politics</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  559. ]]></content:encoded>
  561. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-medias-tireless-pursuit-of-emotive-conflict-in-politics/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  562. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  568. <item>
  569. <title>New Federal Rules Aim To Protect LGBTQ+ Employees</title>
  570. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/new-federal-rules-aim-to-protect-lgbtq-employees/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=new-federal-rules-aim-to-protect-lgbtq-employees</link>
  571. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/new-federal-rules-aim-to-protect-lgbtq-employees/#respond</comments>
  573. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Chabeli Carrazana /  The 19th]]></dc:creator>
  574. <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 12:52:53 +0000</pubDate>
  575. <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category>
  576. <category><![CDATA[DEIB]]></category>
  577. <category><![CDATA[LGBTQIA+]]></category>
  578. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  579. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  580. <category><![CDATA[Bostock v. Clayton County]]></category>
  581. <category><![CDATA[eeoc]]></category>
  582. <category><![CDATA[lgbtq rights]]></category>
  583. <category><![CDATA[transgender rights]]></category>
  584. <category><![CDATA[workplace discrimination]]></category>
  585. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296049</guid>
  586.  
  587. <description><![CDATA[<p>New guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission strengthens protections for transgender and nonbinary employees in American workplaces for the first time in 25 years.</p>
  588. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/new-federal-rules-aim-to-protect-lgbtq-employees/">New Federal Rules Aim To Protect LGBTQ+ Employees</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  589. ]]></description>
  590. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  591. <p><strong>LGBTQ+ workers who are misgendered</strong> by their employers or blocked from accessing restrooms consistent with their gender identity will now get additional workplace protections as a result of <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-harassment-workplace" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">new guidance</a> issued Monday by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. </p>
  592.  
  593.  
  594.  
  595. <p>It’s the first time in 25 years that the EEOC has issued new rules on workplace discrimination — a change precipitated in part by the 2020 Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County, the landmark decision that found that LGBTQ+ workers are&nbsp;<a href="https://19thnews.org/2020/08/the-supreme-court-ruled-on-a-landmark-lgbtq-rights-case-the-doj-has-yet-to-enforce-it/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">protected from workplace discrimination</a>.&nbsp;</p>
  596.  
  597.  
  598.  
  599. <p>“We are really pleased to be issuing this guidance today to reflect our commitment to protecting everyone, and particularly those really vulnerable persons from underserved communities, from harassment in the workplace,” said Charlotte Burrows, the chair of the EEOC, during a call with reporters Monday announcing the changes.</p>
  600.  
  601.  
  602.  
  603. <p>Under the new guidance, employers who consistently call workers by the wrong pronouns or name could be found to be creating a hostile work environment. Similarly, denying an employee access to a bathroom, or other sex-segregated facility such as a lactation or changing room, appropriate with their gender identity could be committing workplace harassment. The guidance goes into effect immediately.&nbsp;</p>
  604.  
  605.  
  606.  
  607. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>It’s the first time in 25 years that the EEOC has issued new rules on workplace discrimination.</p></blockquote></figure>
  608.  
  609.  
  610.  
  611. <p>The EEOC’s guidance is not law, but it does indicate how the commission will interpret harassment cases that are brought to the agency, which is responsible for enforcing civil rights workplace protections. This year, for example, the commission settled a case with several trucking companies that allegedly harassed and then fired two gay mechanics because of their sexual orientation. The companies had to pay <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/ta-dedicated-pay-460000-eeoc-sexual-orientation-and-retaliation-suit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$460,000 “and furnish significant equitable relief” as part of the settlement</a>.  </p>
  612.  
  613.  
  614.  
  615. <p>Burrows said the new guidance was necessary because harassment is pervasive in American workplaces. Employer bias on the basis of race, sex, disability or another characteristic made up more than a third of the cases the EEOC reviewed between fiscal years 2016 and 2023. But the agency had not issued new guidance on the matter since 1999, so, in October, the EEOC began to take public comments as it prepared to make updates. Staff reviewed about 38,000 comments to arrive at the new guidance, which consolidated and replaced five separate guidance documents issued by the EEOC between 1987 and 1999.</p>
  616.  
  617.  
  618.  
  619. <p>The new guidance also details protections that extend to remote workers and&nbsp;<a href="https://19thnews.org/2024/04/pregnant-workers-fairness-act-regulations-childbirth-abortion/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pregnant workers</a>.</p>
  620.  
  621.  
  622.  
  623. <p>“We really talk about the proliferation of virtual work environments … online harassment does occur,” Burrows said. “The bottom line is: If the conduct is sufficiently tied to the workplace, has consequences in the workplace, and contributes to an employee’s hostile work environment, then that legal analysis as to whether or not it violates our civil rights laws is really going to be the same.”&nbsp;</p>
  624.  
  625.  
  626.  
  627. <p>For LGBTQ+ workers, the EEOC’s guidance strengthens the impact of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">2020 Bostock decision</a>, affecting an estimated&nbsp;<a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/state-nd-laws-after-bostock/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">3.6 million</a>&nbsp;employees. It also clarifies the requirements for employers.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
  628.  
  629.  
  630.  
  631. <p>Emily Martin, the chief program officer for the National Women’s Law Center, said in a <a href="https://nwlc.org/press-release/nwlc-reacts-to-eeocs-updated-guidance-on-workplace-harassment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">statement</a> that the guidance “makes clear that federal law does not allow workplaces to be in the business of using harassment to enforce sex stereotypes about how employees should live, present, or identify. This is illegal discrimination, plain and simple.”</p>
  632.  
  633.  
  634.  
  635. <p>The guidelines were approved by a 3-2 vote in the five-member commission, including by Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal.</p>
  636.  
  637.  
  638.  
  639. <p>“The guidance reflects important developments affirming that individuals are protected against harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” Kotagal said in a statement, adding that it also “answers the call of the #MeToo movement, which shined a bright light on the ripple effects of harassment and the need for urgent cultural and legal change.”</p>
  640.  
  641.  
  642.  
  643. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The guidance reflects important developments affirming that individuals are protected against harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  644.  
  645.  
  646.  
  647. <p>But Commissioner Andrea Lucas, who opposed the new guidance, said it “effectively eliminates single-sex workplace facilities” and impinges on women’s rights in the workplace, a controversial conservative talking point that many LGBTQ+ advocates say unnecessarily pits&nbsp;<a href="https://19thnews.org/2024/03/bathroom-safety-trans-nonbinary-people/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">transgender people’s rights</a>&nbsp;and women’s rights against each other.</p>
  648.  
  649.  
  650.  
  651. <p>Lucas, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, said in a statement that “women’s sex-based rights in the workplace are under attack.”&nbsp;</p>
  652.  
  653.  
  654.  
  655. <p>“There is no conflict between demanding rights for women and for all transgender people,” said Ria Tabacco Mar, director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-applauds-eeoc-guidance-on-workplace-harassment#:~:text=The%20new%20guidance%20admirably%20details,1964%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%2C%20the" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">statement</a>. “Attacking trans people does nothing to address the real problems women face. As feminists, we reject efforts to appropriate the rhetoric of ‘women’s rights’ to inflict harm on trans people, men or women.”</p>
  656.  
  657.  
  658.  
  659. <p>Instead, the move by the EEOC is a recognition of the challenges in modern workplaces,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-applauds-eeoc-guidance-on-workplace-harassment#:~:text=The%20new%20guidance%20admirably%20details,1964%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%2C%20the" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">wrote</a>&nbsp;ACLU senior staff attorney Gillian Thomas, “where the #MeToo movement, overdue reckoning with our nation’s violent racist history, and recognition of LGBTQ people’s right to be free from workplace discrimination, among other developments, have brought harassment’s perniciousness into sharp relief.”</p>
  660.  
  661.  
  662.  
  663. <p class="has-small-font-size"><em>Kate Sosin, The 19th’s LGBTQ+ reporter, contributed to this report.</em></p>
  664. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/new-federal-rules-aim-to-protect-lgbtq-employees/">New Federal Rules Aim To Protect LGBTQ+ Employees</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  665. ]]></content:encoded>
  667. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/new-federal-rules-aim-to-protect-lgbtq-employees/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  668. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  671. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/AdobeStock_300144034-1016x585.jpeg" length="534613" type="image/jpeg" />
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  673. </item>
  674. <item>
  675. <title>Torture, Abu Ghraib, and the Legacy of the U.S. War on Iraq</title>
  676. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/torture-abu-ghraib-and-the-legacy-of-the-u-s-war-on-iraq/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=torture-abu-ghraib-and-the-legacy-of-the-u-s-war-on-iraq</link>
  677. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/torture-abu-ghraib-and-the-legacy-of-the-u-s-war-on-iraq/#respond</comments>
  679. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Maha Hilal /  TomDispatch]]></dc:creator>
  680. <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 12:41:22 +0000</pubDate>
  681. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  682. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
  683. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
  684. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  685. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  686. <category><![CDATA[Wounds of War]]></category>
  687. <category><![CDATA[abu ghraib]]></category>
  688. <category><![CDATA[iraq war]]></category>
  689. <category><![CDATA[Taguba report]]></category>
  690. <category><![CDATA[torture]]></category>
  691. <category><![CDATA[war on terror]]></category>
  692. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296042</guid>
  693.  
  694. <description><![CDATA[<p>20 years after the Iraq War prison scandal, victims are still in court and Washington is still trying to forget.</p>
  695. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/torture-abu-ghraib-and-the-legacy-of-the-u-s-war-on-iraq/">Torture, Abu Ghraib, and the Legacy of the U.S. War on Iraq</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  696. ]]></description>
  697. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  698. <p><strong>“To this day I feel humiliation</strong> for what was done to me… The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.” That’s what Abu Ghraib survivor Talib al-Majli <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/11/1167341565/us-iraq-war-abu-ghraib-survivor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">had to say</a> about the 16 months he spent at that notorious prison in Iraq after being captured and detained by American troops on October 31, 2003. In the wake of his release, al-Majli has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/11/1167341565/us-iraq-war-abu-ghraib-survivor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">continued to suffer </a>a myriad of difficulties, including an inability to hold a job thanks to physical and mental-health deficits and a family life that remains in shambles.</p>
  699.  
  700.  
  701.  
  702. <p>He was never even charged with a crime — not exactly surprising, given the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.derechos.org/nizkor/us/doc/icrc-prisoner-report-feb-2004.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Red Cross’s estimate</a>&nbsp;that 70% to 90% of those arrested and detained in Iraq after the 2003 American invasion of that country were guilty of nothing. But like other survivors, his time at Abu Ghraib continues to haunt him, even though, nearly 20 years later in America, the lack of justice and accountability for war crimes at that prison has been relegated to the distant past and is considered a long-closed chapter in this country’s War on Terror.</p>
  703.  
  704.  
  705.  
  706. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Abu Ghraib “Scandal”</h3>
  707.  
  708.  
  709.  
  710. <p>On April 28th, 2004, CBS News’s <em>60 Minutes</em> aired a segment about Abu Ghraib prison, revealing for the first time photos of the kinds of torture that had happened there. Some of those now-infamous pictures included a <a href="https://www.wired.com/2008/03/gallery-abu-ghraib/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">black-hooded prisoner</a> being made to stand on a box, his arms outstretched and electrical wires attached to his hands; naked prisoners piled on top of each other in a <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/abu-ghraib-torture-photos" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">pyramid-like structure</a>; and a prisoner in a jumpsuit on his knees being <a href="https://www.npr.org/2006/03/21/5293136/dog-handler-in-abu-ghraib-photo-found-guilty" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">threatened with a dog</a>. In addition to those disturbing images, several photos included American military personnel grinning or posing with thumbs-up signs, indications that they seemed to be taking pleasure in the humiliation and torture of those Iraqi prisoners and that the photos were meant to be seen.</p>
  711.  
  712.  
  713.  
  714. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;The time I spent in Abu Ghraib — it ended my life. I’m only half a human now.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  715.  
  716.  
  717.  
  718. <p>Once those pictures were exposed, there was widespread outrage across the globe in what became known as the Abu Ghraib scandal. However, that word “scandal” still puts the focus on those photos rather than on the violence the victims suffered or the fact that, two decades later, there has been zero accountability when it comes to the government officials who sanctioned an atmosphere ripe for torture.</p>
  719.  
  720.  
  721.  
  722. <p>Thanks to the existence of the Federal Tort Claims Act, all claims against the federal government, when it came to Abu Ghraib, were dismissed. Nor did the government&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/25/iraq-torture-survivors-await-us-redress-accountability" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">provide any compensation</a>&nbsp;or redress to the Abu Ghraib survivors, even after, in 2022, the Pentagon<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/09/25/iraq-torture-survivors-await-us-redress-accountability" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">&nbsp;released a plan</a>&nbsp;to minimize harm to civilians in U.S. military operations. However, there is a civil suit filed in 2008 —&nbsp;<em>Al Shimari v. CACI —</em>&nbsp;brought&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/04/15/abu-ghraib-torture-case-finally-goes-trial" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">on behalf of</a>&nbsp;three plaintiffs against military contractor CACI’s role in torture at Abu Ghraib. Though CACI tried 20 times to have the case dismissed, the trial — the first to address the abuse of Abu Ghraib detainees —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2024/apr/14/abu-ghraib-iraq-torture-abuse" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">finally began</a>&nbsp;in mid-April in the Eastern District Court of Virginia. If the plaintiffs succeed with a ruling in their favor, it will be a welcome step toward some semblance of justice. However, for other survivors of Abu Ghraib, any prospect of justice remains unlikely at best.</p>
  723.  
  724.  
  725.  
  726. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Road to Abu Ghraib</h3>
  727.  
  728.  
  729.  
  730. <p>”My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture… And therefore, I’m not going to address the ‘torture’ word.” So said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a press conference in 2004. He failed, of course, to even mention that he and other members of President George W. Bush’s administration had gone to great lengths not only to sanction brutal torture techniques in their “Global War on Terror,” but to dramatically raise the threshold for what might even be considered torture.</p>
  731.  
  732.  
  733.  
  734. <p>As Vian Bakir argued in her book <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Torture-Intelligence-and-Sousveillance-in-the-War-on-Terror-Agenda-Building-Struggles/Bakir/p/book/9781138252998" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><em>Torture, Intelligence and Sousveillance in the War on Terror: Agenda-Building Struggles</em></a>, his comments were part of a three-pronged Bush administration strategy to reframe the abuses depicted in those photos, including providing “evidence” of the supposed legality of the basic interrogation techniques, framing such abuses as isolated rather than systemic events, and doing their best to destroy visual evidence of torture altogether.</p>
  735.  
  736.  
  737.  
  738. <p>Although top Bush officials claimed to know nothing about what happened at Abu Ghraib, the war on terror they launched was built to thoroughly dehumanize and deny any rights to those detained. As a 2004 Human Rights Watch report, “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/06/09/road-abu-ghraib" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">The Road to Abu Ghraib</a>,” noted, a pattern of abuse globally resulted not from the actions of individual soldiers, but from administration policies that circumvented the law, deployed distinctly torture-like methods of interrogation to “soften up” detainees, and took a “see no evil, hear no evil,” approach to any allegations of prisoner abuse.</p>
  739.  
  740.  
  741.  
  742. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Thanks to the existence of the Federal Tort Claims Act, all claims against the federal government, when it came to Abu Ghraib, were dismissed.</p></blockquote></figure>
  743.  
  744.  
  745.  
  746. <p>In fact, the Bush administration actively sought out legal opinions about how to exclude war-on-terror prisoners from any legal framework whatsoever. A&nbsp;<a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/20020125.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">memorandum</a>&nbsp;from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to President Bush argued that the Geneva Conventions simply didn’t apply to members of the terror group al-Qaeda or the Afghan Taliban. Regarding what would constitute torture, an infamous memo, drafted by Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo,&nbsp;<a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/02.08.01.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">argued that</a>&nbsp;“physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.” Even after the Abu Ghraib photos became public, Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials never relented when it came to their supposed inapplicability. As Rumsfeld put it in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/06/09/road-abu-ghraib#_ftn98" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">television interview</a>, they “did not apply precisely” in Iraq.</p>
  747.  
  748.  
  749.  
  750. <p>In January 2004, Major General Anthony Taguba was appointed to conduct an Army investigation into the military unit, the 800th Military Police Brigade, which ran Abu Ghraib, where abuses had been reported from October through December 2003. His report was unequivocal about the systematic nature of torture there: “Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320th Military Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison.”</p>
  751.  
  752.  
  753.  
  754. <p>Sadly, the Taguba report was neither the first nor the last to document abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib. Moreover, prior to its release, the International Committee of the Red Cross had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2004/06/09/road-abu-ghraib" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">issued multiple warnings</a>&nbsp;that such abuse was occurring at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.</p>
  755.  
  756.  
  757.  
  758. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Simulating Atonement</h3>
  759.  
  760.  
  761.  
  762. <p>Once the pictures were revealed, President Bush and other members of his administration were quick to condemn the violence at the prison. Within a week, Bush had assured King Abdullah of Jordan, who was visiting the White House, that he was sorry about what those Iraqi prisoners had endured and “equally sorry that people who’ve been seeing those pictures didn’t understand the true nature and heart of America.”</p>
  763.  
  764.  
  765.  
  766. <p>As scholar Ryan Shepard <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10510970903260319" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">pointed out</a>, Bush’s behavior was a classic case of “simulated atonement,” aimed at offering an “appearance of genuine confession” while avoiding any real responsibility for what happened. He analyzed four instances in which the president offered an “apologia” for what happened — two interviews with Alhurra and Al Arabiya television on May 5, 2004, and two appearances with the King of Jordan the next day.</p>
  767.  
  768.  
  769.  
  770. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Bush’s behavior was a classic case of “simulated atonement,” aimed at offering an “appearance of genuine confession” while avoiding any real responsibility for what happened.</p></blockquote></figure>
  771.  
  772.  
  773.  
  774. <p>In each case, the president&nbsp;<a href="https://tomdispatch.com/quaint-and-obsolete/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">also responsible</a>&nbsp;for the setting up of an offshore prison of injustice on occupied Cuban land in Guantánamo Bay in 2002 managed to shift the blame in classic fashion, suggesting that the torture had not been systematic and that the fault for it lay with a few low-level people. He also denied that he knew anything about torture at Abu Ghraib prior to the release of the photos and tried to restore the image of America by drawing a comparison to what the regime of Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein had done prior to the American invasion.</p>
  775.  
  776.  
  777.  
  778. <p>In his interview with Alhurra, for example, he claimed that the U.S. response to Abu Ghraib — investigations and justice — would be unlike anything Saddam Hussein had done. Sadly enough, however, the American takeover of that prison and the torture that occurred there was anything but a break from Hussein’s reign. In the context of such a faux apology, however, Bush apparently assumed that Iraqis could be easily swayed on that point, regardless of the violence they had endured at American hands; that they would, in fact, as Ryan Shepard&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10510970903260319" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">put it</a>, “accept the truth-seeking, freedom-loving American occupation as vastly superior to the previous regime.”</p>
  779.  
  780.  
  781.  
  782. <p>True accountability for Abu Ghraib? Not a chance. But revisiting Bush’s apologia so many years later is a vivid reminder that he and his top officials never had the slightest intention of truly addressing those acts of torture as systemic to America’s war on terror, especially because he was directly implicated in them.</p>
  783.  
  784.  
  785.  
  786. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Weapons of American Imperialism</h3>
  787.  
  788.  
  789.  
  790. <p>On March 19th, 2003, President Bush gave an address from the Oval Office to his “fellow citizens.” He opened by&nbsp;<a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/news/20030319-17.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">saying that</a>&nbsp;“American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.” The liberated people of Iraq, he said, would “witness the honorable and decent spirit of the American military.”</p>
  791.  
  792.  
  793.  
  794. <p>There was, of course, nothing about his invasion of Iraq that was honorable or decent. It was an illegally waged war for which Bush and his administration had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/19/examining-justifications-us-invasion-iraq" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">spent months building support</a>. In his State of the Union address in 2002, in fact, the president had referred to Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” and a country that “continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.” Later that year, he began to claim that Saddam’s regime also had weapons of mass destruction. (It didn’t and he knew it.) If that wasn’t enough to establish the threat Iraq supposedly posed, in January 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/3/19/examining-justifications-us-invasion-iraq" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">claimed</a>&nbsp;that it “aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.”</p>
  795.  
  796.  
  797.  
  798. <p>Days after Cheney made those claims, Secretary of State Colin Powell falsely asserted to members of the U.N. Security Council that Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons, had used them before, and would not hesitate to use them again. He mentioned the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/03/1151160567/colin-powell-iraq-un-weapons-mass-destruction" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">17 times in his speech</a>, leaving no room to mistake the urgency of his message. Similarly, President Bush insisted the U.S. had “no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat and restore control of that country to its own people.”</p>
  799.  
  800.  
  801.  
  802. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>To befriend the U.S. in the context of Abu Ghraib, would, of course, have involved a sort of coerced amnesia.</p></blockquote></figure>
  803.  
  804.  
  805.  
  806. <p>The false pretenses under which the U.S. waged war on Iraq are a reminder that the war on terror was never truly about curbing a threat, but about expanding American imperial power globally.</p>
  807.  
  808.  
  809.  
  810. <p>When the United States took over that prison, they replaced Saddam Hussein’s portrait with a sign that said, “America is the friend of all Iraqis.” To befriend the U.S. in the context of Abu Ghraib, would, of course, have involved a sort of coerced amnesia.</p>
  811.  
  812.  
  813.  
  814. <p>In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1525/lal.2007.19.2.247" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">his essay</a>&nbsp;“Abu Ghraib and its Shadow Archives,” Macquarie University professor Joseph Pugliese makes this connection, writing that “the Abu Ghraib photographs compel the viewer to bear testimony to the deployment and enactment of absolute U.S. imperial power on the bodies of the Arab prisoners through the organizing principles of white supremacist aesthetics that intertwine violence and sexuality with Orientalist spectacle.”</p>
  815.  
  816.  
  817.  
  818. <p>As a project of American post-9/11 empire building, Abu Ghraib and the torture of prisoners there should be viewed through the lens of what I call carceral imperialism — an extension of the American carceral state beyond its borders in the service of domination and hegemony. (The Alliance for Global Justice refers to a phenomenon related to the one I’m discussing as “<a href="https://afgj.org/prison-imperialism" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">prison imperialism</a>.”) The distinction I draw is based on my focus on the war on terror and how the prison became a tool through which that war was being fought. In the case of Abu Ghraib, the capture, detention, and torture through which Iraqis were contained and subdued was a primary strategy of the U.S. colonization of Iraq and was used as a way to transform detained Iraqis into a visible threat that would legitimize the U.S. presence there. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Bagram prison</a>&nbsp;in Afghanistan was another example of carceral imperialism.)</p>
  819.  
  820.  
  821.  
  822. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Beyond Spectacle and Towards Justice</h3>
  823.  
  824.  
  825.  
  826. <p>What made the torture at Abu Ghraib possible to begin with? While there were, of course, several factors, it’s important to consider one above all: the way the American war not on, but of terror rendered Iraqi bodies so utterly disposable.</p>
  827.  
  828.  
  829.  
  830. <p>One way of viewing this dehumanization is through philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=2003" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><em>Homo Sacer</em></a>, which defines a relationship between power and two forms of life: <em>zoe</em> and <em>bios</em>. <em>Zoe</em> refers to an individual who is recognized as fully human with a political and social life, while <em>bios</em> refers to physical life alone. Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib were reduced to <em>bios</em>, or bare life, while being stripped of all rights and protections, which left them vulnerable to uninhibited and unaccountable violence and horrifying torture.</p>
  831.  
  832.  
  833.  
  834. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>It’s crucial, even so many years later, to ensure that those who endured such horrific violence at American hands are not forgotten.</p></blockquote></figure>
  835.  
  836.  
  837.  
  838. <p>Twenty years later, those unforgettable images of torture at Abu Ghraib serve as a continuous reminder of the nature of American brutality in that Global War on Terror that has&nbsp;<a href="https://tomdispatch.com/the-pentagon-proclaims-failure-in-its-war-on-terror-in-africa/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">not</a>&nbsp;ended. They continue to haunt me — and other Muslims and Arabs — 20 years later. They will undoubtedly be seared in my memory for life.</p>
  839.  
  840.  
  841.  
  842. <p>Whether or not justice prevails in some way for Abu Ghraib’s survivors, as witnesses – even distant ones — to what transpired at that prison, our job should still be to search for the stories behind the hoods, the bars, and the indescribable acts of torture that took place there. It’s crucial, even so many years later, to ensure that those who endured such horrific violence at American hands are not forgotten. Otherwise, our gaze will become one more weapon of torture — extending the life of the horrific acts in those images and ensuring that the humiliation of those War on Terror prisoners will continue to be a passing spectacle for our consumption.</p>
  843.  
  844.  
  845.  
  846. <p>Two decades after those photos were released, what’s crucial about the unbearable violence and horror they capture is the choice they still force viewers to make — whether to become just another bystander to the violence and horror this country delivered under the label of the War on Terror or to take in the torture and demand justice for the survivors.</p>
  847. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/torture-abu-ghraib-and-the-legacy-of-the-u-s-war-on-iraq/">Torture, Abu Ghraib, and the Legacy of the U.S. War on Iraq</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  848. ]]></content:encoded>
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  851. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  856. </item>
  857. <item>
  858. <title>Breaking the Impasse on Nuclear Disarmament</title>
  859. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/breaking-the-impasse-on-nuclear-disarmament/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=breaking-the-impasse-on-nuclear-disarmament</link>
  860. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/breaking-the-impasse-on-nuclear-disarmament/#respond</comments>
  862. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Daryl G. Kimball /  Arms Control Today]]></dc:creator>
  863. <pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2024 12:25:05 +0000</pubDate>
  864. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  865. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
  866. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  867. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  868. <category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
  869. <category><![CDATA[joe biden]]></category>
  870. <category><![CDATA[New START]]></category>
  871. <category><![CDATA[nuclear disarmament]]></category>
  872. <category><![CDATA[nuclear testing]]></category>
  873. <category><![CDATA[vladimir putin]]></category>
  874. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296034</guid>
  875.  
  876. <description><![CDATA[<p>Ahead of START’s expiration in 2026, the world needs to pressure the U.S. and Russia back to the negotiating table. </p>
  877. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/breaking-the-impasse-on-nuclear-disarmament/">Breaking the Impasse on Nuclear Disarmament</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  878. ]]></description>
  879. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  880. <p><strong>The success of the global</strong> nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament system has always relied on effective cooperation and dialogue between the two largest nuclear-weapon states.</p>
  881.  
  882.  
  883.  
  884. <p>But as their relations deteriorated over the past decade, Russia and the United States have dithered and delayed on new disarmament talks and even failed to resolve disputes on successful arms control agreements that helped ease tensions&nbsp;and reduce nuclear risks in the past.</p>
  885.  
  886.  
  887.  
  888. <p>Russia’s illegal and brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threat rhetoric have increased the danger of nuclear conflict. The war has become the Kremlin’s cynical excuse to short-circuit meaningful channels of diplomacy that could reduce nuclear risk.&nbsp;</p>
  889.  
  890.  
  891.  
  892. <p>In early 2023, Russia suspended implementation of the last remaining Russian-U.S. nuclear arms control agreement, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), while publicly committing to adhere to the treaty’s central limits. But New START will expire in February 2026.</p>
  893.  
  894.  
  895.  
  896. <p>That is why U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan proposed in June 2023 that the two sides start talks “without precondition” to establish a new nuclear arms control framework. </p>
  897.  
  898.  
  899.  
  900. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Halting the cycle of spiraling nuclear tensions is in every nation’s interest.</p></blockquote></figure>
  901.  
  902.  
  903.  
  904. <p>“It is in neither [Russian or U.S.] interests to embark on an open-ended competition in strategic nuclear forces,” and the United States is “prepared to stick to the central limits as long as Russia does,” he said. New START caps each side at no more than 1,550 treaty-accountable deployed nuclear warheads.</p>
  905.  
  906.  
  907.  
  908. <p>But in December, Russia rejected the U.S. proposal, saying it sees “no basis for such work” due to tensions over the war in Ukraine.&nbsp;</p>
  909.  
  910.  
  911.  
  912. <p>Meanwhile, China is expanding and diversifying its relatively smaller arsenal, now estimated at 500 nuclear warheads, about 300 of which are on long-range systems. After agreeing to discuss nuclear risk reduction with U.S. officials in November, Chinese leaders have declined so far to meet again.</p>
  913.  
  914.  
  915.  
  916. <p>The White House has requested $69 billion for sustaining and upgrading the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal in fiscal year 2025, a 22 percent increase from the previous year. Nevertheless, some politicians and members of the nuclear priesthood are pushing to increase the cost and size of the nuclear arsenal even more by deploying 50 extra land-based missiles and uploading additional warheads on existing missiles.</p>
  917.  
  918.  
  919.  
  920. <p>If Russia and the United States exceed New START limits, China undoubtedly would be tempted to accelerate its own nuclear buildup. Such an action-reaction cycle would be madness.&nbsp;</p>
  921.  
  922.  
  923.  
  924. <p>Once nuclear-armed adversaries achieve a mutually assured destruction capability, as China, Russia, and the United States have done, expanding their nuclear forces or acquiring new capabilities will not lead to more security but rather to an increasingly costly, unstable, and dangerous balance of terror. As U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put it in December 2022, “Nuclear deterrence isn’t just a numbers game. In fact, that sort of thinking can spur a dangerous arms race.”</p>
  925.  
  926.  
  927.  
  928. <p>Halting the cycle of spiraling nuclear tensions is in every nation’s interest. Furthermore, under Article VI of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Russia and the United States, along with China, France, and the United Kingdom, have a legal obligation to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” Refusing to engage at the negotiating table, combined with building an even greater nuclear destructive capacity, is a violation of this core NPT tenet.</p>
  929.  
  930.  
  931.  
  932. <p>Ahead of New START’s expiration, all NPT states-parties, nuclear armed or not, allied or nonaligned, must increase the diplomatic pressure on Russia and United States, as well as China, to freeze the size of their nuclear arsenals and engage in meaningful, sustained arms reduction talks. Their message should be sent through all relevant channels, including bilateral meetings, the upcoming preparatory meeting for the next NPT review conference, the UN General Assembly, and daily at the UN Security Council.</p>
  933.  
  934.  
  935.  
  936. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The two sides also should seek to resume on a reciprocal basis data exchanges and inspections similar to those under New START.</p></blockquote></figure>
  937.  
  938.  
  939.  
  940. <p>A comprehensive, formal Russian-U.S. nuclear arms control deal would be difficult to achieve even in a more stable geostrategic environment. In these more troubled times, the pragmatic interim approach should be for Moscow and Washington to pursue a simple executive agreement or just unilaterally declare that they will continue to respect New START’s central deployed warhead limit until a more comprehensive nuclear arms control framework agreement can be concluded.&nbsp;</p>
  941.  
  942.  
  943.  
  944. <p>As part of such a deal, the two sides also should seek to resume on a reciprocal basis data exchanges and inspections similar to those under New START. If they cannot do that, each side could confidently use their national technical means of intelligence to monitor compliance and ensure there is no militarily significant&nbsp;violation by the other party of the deployed warhead ceiling. Such an&nbsp;arrangement would lessen dangerous nuclear competition and create&nbsp;space for more intensive and wide-ranging arms control negotiations.</p>
  945.  
  946.  
  947.  
  948. <p>More nuclear weapons make us all less secure. Embarking on a safer path through disarmament diplomacy is imperative.</p>
  949. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/breaking-the-impasse-on-nuclear-disarmament/">Breaking the Impasse on Nuclear Disarmament</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  950. ]]></content:encoded>
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  953. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  959. <item>
  960. <title>College Leaders Want Obedience. Student Protesters Want Disinvestment</title>
  961. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/college-leaders-want-obedience-student-protesters-want-disinvestment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=college-leaders-want-obedience-student-protesters-want-disinvestment</link>
  962. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/college-leaders-want-obedience-student-protesters-want-disinvestment/#respond</comments>
  964. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sravya Tadepalli /  Prism ]]></dc:creator>
  965. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 17:39:48 +0000</pubDate>
  966. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  967. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  968. <category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
  969. <category><![CDATA[palestine]]></category>
  970. <category><![CDATA[protest]]></category>
  971. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=296020</guid>
  972.  
  973. <description><![CDATA[<p>Gifts and contracts from Israel total about $342 million between 2014 and 2022.</p>
  974. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/college-leaders-want-obedience-student-protesters-want-disinvestment/">College Leaders Want Obedience. Student Protesters Want Disinvestment</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  975. ]]></description>
  976. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  977. <p>Students at dozens of universities across the U.S. have started encampments in the last two weeks to pressure administrators to divest from companies enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza.</p>
  978.  
  979.  
  980.  
  981. <p>On April 17, while Columbia University President Minouche Shafik traveled to Washington, D.C., to testify on antisemitism in front of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, hundreds of students set up tents in the heart of Columbia’s campus, calling on the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel. On April 18, Shafik called the police to clear the encampment, leading to the arrest of more than 100 students. The mass crackdown prompted students at several other universities to join the cause at their schools.</p>
  982.  
  983.  
  984.  
  985. <p>“As students, we refuse to be complicit while our university remains complicit in genocide,” said a student protestor at the Tufts University encampment, who asked to be kept anonymous. “Until our institutions disclose their investments and divest from all companies that aid and abet the genocide in Palestine, we will continue organizing to disrupt business as usual.”</p>
  986.  
  987.  
  988.  
  989. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The mass crackdown prompted students at several other universities to join the cause at their schools.</p></blockquote></figure>
  990.  
  991.  
  992.  
  993. <p>While specific demands from college campuses differ, the most common ask is that universities disclose financial ties to Israel and&nbsp;<a href="https://prismreports.org/2023/11/16/pro-palestinian-organizers-target-military-corporations/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">divest</a>&nbsp;from companies complicit in ongoing violence. While the amount of money universities invest in such companies is largely unknown, a database from the&nbsp;<a href="https://sites.ed.gov/foreigngifts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">U.S. Department of Education</a>&nbsp;shows that American colleges and universities reported about $342 million in gifts and contracts from Israel from 2014-2024.</p>
  994.  
  995.  
  996.  
  997. <p>The impact of financial investments and contracts with the Israeli government may be significant. Reporting from <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/3/19/harvard-israel-palestine-investments/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow"><em>The Harvard Crimson</em> in 2020</a> found that the Harvard Management Company, which manages the Harvard endowment’s investments, had more than $194 million invested in Booking Holdings, a company the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session31/database-hrc3136/23-06-30-Update-israeli-settlement-opt-database-hrc3136.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">United Nations listed</a> as having ties to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Pro-Palestinian students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that the university has accepted more than <a href="https://apnews.com/article/college-protests-israel-divestment-palestinians-3f37f96f7be8e1124f266842d9caa627" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$11 million</a> from Israel’s defense ministry.</p>
  998.  
  999.  
  1000.  
  1001. <p>Divestment&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-divestment-doesnt-hurt-dirty-companies" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">usually has a minimal impact</a>&nbsp;on companies’ bottom lines as sold shares are transferred to other investors. But students are pushing their universities to divest&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/business/college-protesters-divestment-israel.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">on moral grounds</a>, arguing that continuing to fund Israel makes these universities complicit in genocide.</p>
  1002.  
  1003.  
  1004.  
  1005. <p>“We think that the bare minimum for the university to do is divest, and even if they’re not sending riot cops to remove us from the space, they’re still invested in an ongoing genocide, and they need to divest, and that is the bottom line,” said the anonymous Tufts student.</p>
  1006.  
  1007.  
  1008.  
  1009. <p>Protests have been almost entirely peaceful, with rare exceptions usually prompted by the arrival of counter-protestors or police. At the University of Texas at Austin, President Jay Hartzell&nbsp;<a href="https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/ut-austin-faculty-protest-state-police-arrests-pro-palestinian-demonstrators/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">worked with Gov. Greg Abbott</a>&nbsp;to call on Texas state troopers to make arrests. The troopers arrived in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/27/israel-hamas-war-campus-protests-arrests/73462872007/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">riot gear</a>, with some on horseback, making&nbsp;<a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/ut-austin-protest-faculty-palestine-19421364.php" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">dozens of arrests</a>&nbsp;and pinning several students and a journalist to the ground.</p>
  1010.  
  1011.  
  1012.  
  1013. <p>“I’ve protested here as a student, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Roger Reeves, a professor of English at UT Austin. “It was unnecessary, and I was really surprised that the administration had done something like that and called for such a violent repression of a peaceful protest.”</p>
  1014.  
  1015.  
  1016.  
  1017. <p>Administrators have used school rules governing public spaces to discipline students and call for police action. Administrators have suspended hundreds of students <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/columbia-protests-gaza-encampment-suspensions/5361232/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">from their universities</a>, and in many cases, students have lost access to their on-campus housing and dining services. Police have also arrested <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/27/us/northeastern-arizona-state-university-protests-arrests.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">hundreds of protestors at schools</a> such as Yale University, New York University, Arizona State University, Emerson College, and several other college campuses.</p>
  1018.  
  1019.  
  1020.  
  1021. <p>“This [protest] escalation is long overdue,” said another student protestor at Tufts University. “Students should be putting everything on the line. We are willing to risk our educations, our futures, everything, because people in Palestine have not been given the opportunity to see theirs realized.”</p>
  1022.  
  1023.  
  1024.  
  1025. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Administrators have suspended hundreds of students <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/columbia-protests-gaza-encampment-suspensions/5361232/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">from their universities</a>, and in many cases, students have lost access to their on-campus housing and dining services.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1026.  
  1027.  
  1028.  
  1029. <p>While encampment occupations have taken place outside, allowing classes and indoor activities to largely continue, some universities have treated the protests as disruptions. The University of Southern California&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestine-war-campus-protests-usc-cff0c1e59fc6164f615a2686d7f1b401#:~:text=LOS%20ANGELES%20(AP)%20%E2%80%94%20The,alumni%20stunned%20as%20protests%20over" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony</a>&nbsp;in response to protests against its decision to prohibit a pro-Palestinian valedictorian from speaking at the graduation ceremony. On April 22, Columbia University announced that its Morningside main campus would hold&nbsp;<a href="https://ca.news.yahoo.com/person-hybrid-classes-offered-columbia-225021262.html#:~:text=This%20is%20a%20misrepresentation%20of,the%20remainder%20of%20the%20semester." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">hybrid classes for the rest of the semester with few exceptions</a>.</p>
  1030.  
  1031.  
  1032.  
  1033. <p>“By moving classes online, the university is buying into the narrative that the campus is not safe and secure for students and especially for Jewish students, which actually is not the case,” said Marianne Hirsch, an English professor at Columbia University.</p>
  1034.  
  1035.  
  1036.  
  1037. <p>Several university professors and alums, including Hirsch, have publicly&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/thrasherxy/status/1781368248388161540" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">expressed their horror</a>&nbsp;at the decisions of university presidents to arrest students. On April 22, members of the Barnard chapter of the American Association for University Professors unanimously issued a vote of “no confidence” in Barnard College President Laura Rosenbury for a “<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRBefRHNEcGERU5o91lPasMG8RY0fN6F1GXqtnxclJRrE3ANS3LtHh-tWirM7miv8cMXn3Hlgsp1_Ac/pub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">lack of care for students</a>” in the context of pro-Palestinian activism on campus. A Columbia University senate vote on a similar resolution is expected to face Shafik for her response to the encampment protest, although it is expected to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/25/us/columbia-senate-nemat-shafik.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">fall short of censure</a>.</p>
  1038.  
  1039.  
  1040.  
  1041. <p>“To bring in police and make arrests so fast without even a chance at negotiation, surrounding the campus with armed police in riot gear, shutting off the campus from the community and erecting barriers, I think that has just created fear and intimidation and has actually produced the threat of violence that wasn’t actually happening at all in the encampment protest,” Hirsch said.</p>
  1042.  
  1043.  
  1044.  
  1045. <p>Professors have also been targeted by the police. Police&nbsp;<a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/emory-university-philosophy-chair-arrested-034839075.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">handcuffed Emory University philosophy department chair Noëlle McAfee</a>&nbsp;after just observing the demonstration and the police crackdown. Police threw Emory economics professor Caroline Fohlin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/columbia-usc-university-protests-04-25-24/h_b017df501bd8ea7eccc3231b882ae1db" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">to the ground and arrested</a>&nbsp;her after she expressed concern about police violently arresting a student. The faculty senate at Emory University is holding a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/faculty-senate-of-emory-college-calls-for-no-confidence-vote-for-president/JFKZ3NJSYNCCTEHAD34JJQ3UQU/#:~:text=In%20an%20overwhelming%20vote%20Friday,vote%20in%20President%20Gregory%20Fenves." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">no-confidence vote</a>&nbsp;concerning President Gregory Fenves.</p>
  1046.  
  1047.  
  1048.  
  1049. <p>Some university staff have resigned in protest of their university’s behavior. <a href="https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04/23/three-barnard-student-admissions-representatives-step-down-following-student-protesters-arrests-suspensions/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Three head tour guides at Barnard College</a> resigned after Barnard suspended and evicted at least 53 student protestors. Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe, a professor at Hunter College, <a href="https://twitter.com/taoleighgoffe/status/1782032686887948780" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">resigned from an artist-in-residence position</a> in protest of what she described as Columbia’s “<a href="https://twitter.com/taoleighgoffe/status/1782032704134934897/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">totalitarian actions</a>,” praising the protestors in a note on Twitter.</p>
  1050.  
  1051.  
  1052.  
  1053. <p>“The students are giving a masterclass in what it means to apply to the core values,”&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/taoleighgoffe/status/1782032704134934897/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Goffe wrote</a>. “Protect privacy. Protecting one another by masking outdoors during the ongoing pandemic. Mutual aid. Leading by example. And studying for finals!”</p>
  1054.  
  1055.  
  1056.  
  1057. <p>Despite the crackdowns, students have continued encampments planning robust programming from Palestinian history teach-ins to tutorials in dabke, or traditional Levantine folk dance. At Tufts, Harvard, and other schools, protestors have posted&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C6T3jWLOR8i/?img_index=1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">daily schedules</a>&nbsp;full of events to attract students to the encampments and encourage solidarity building with Palestine. The programming is also designed to reorient attention to what students believe matters more than their protest activities—the killing of more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza.</p>
  1058.  
  1059.  
  1060.  
  1061. <p>Students told Prism that the best support is turnout. With higher numbers of participants, it becomes more difficult for the university to crack down on encampments. Students also said they prefer financial donations go to direct relief in Gaza, but students could use contributions for extra supplies like tents and blankets. While student encampments that have not yet been repressed are settling in for the long haul, hopeful for the possibility of negotiations, students also are prepared.</p>
  1062.  
  1063.  
  1064.  
  1065. <p>“Divestment may not happen while I’m at Tufts, but I do think there is awareness spreading in the U.S. about the reality of the Zionist occupation of Palestine and people are starting to become willing to put themselves on the line in the U.S.,” said the first anonymous Tufts student protestor. “I think the movement to divest from apartheid South Africa took 12 years at Tufts and who knows how long it will take for this movement.”</p>
  1066. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/college-leaders-want-obedience-student-protesters-want-disinvestment/">College Leaders Want Obedience. Student Protesters Want Disinvestment</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1067. ]]></content:encoded>
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  1075. </item>
  1076. <item>
  1077. <title>Have the World’s Coral Reefs Passed the Point of No Return?</title>
  1078. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/have-the-worlds-coral-reefs-past-the-point-of-no-return/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=have-the-worlds-coral-reefs-past-the-point-of-no-return</link>
  1079. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/have-the-worlds-coral-reefs-past-the-point-of-no-return/#respond</comments>
  1081. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Kate Yoder /  Grist]]></dc:creator>
  1082. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:25:27 +0000</pubDate>
  1083. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1084. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
  1085. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  1086. <category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
  1087. <category><![CDATA[climate change]]></category>
  1088. <category><![CDATA[coral bleaching]]></category>
  1089. <category><![CDATA[coral reef]]></category>
  1090. <category><![CDATA[extreme heat]]></category>
  1091. <category><![CDATA[global warming]]></category>
  1092. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295976</guid>
  1093.  
  1094. <description><![CDATA[<p>A quarter of marine life depends on coral reefs. So do 1 billion people.</p>
  1095. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/have-the-worlds-coral-reefs-past-the-point-of-no-return/">Have the World’s Coral Reefs Passed the Point of No Return?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1096. ]]></description>
  1097. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<span id="block_fe628a9d669df95ba1facdda342b6be9" class="td-article-related-box-block block md:inline md:float-right w-[350px] max-w-full border-4 border-black p-6 md:ml-5 !my-12 !md:my-6">
  1098. <span class="text-red block font-proxima-nova absolute -translate-y-11 pt-2 pb-1.5 px-3 bg-white font-semibold uppercase tracking-widest text-lg leading-none">Related</span>
  1099. <span class="flex flex-col gap-2 font-semibold font-news-gothic-std">
  1100. <span class="block">
  1101. <span class="block">
  1102. <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/dig-series/the-scramble-for-deep-sea-minerals/" class="!border-0">
  1103. The Scramble for Deep-Sea Minerals </a>
  1104. </span>
  1105. <span class="block mt-2">
  1106. <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/dig-series/the-scramble-for-deep-sea-minerals/"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="480" height="270" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP23177485002841-scaled-480x270.jpg" class="attachment-16:9-medium size-16:9-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP23177485002841-scaled-480x270.jpg 480w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP23177485002841-scaled-320x180.jpg 320w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP23177485002841-scaled-720x405.jpg 720w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP23177485002841-scaled-1040x585.jpg 1040w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP23177485002841-scaled-1280x720.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a>
  1107. </span>
  1108. </span>
  1109. </span>
  1110. </span>
  1111.  
  1112.  
  1113.  
  1114. <p class="has-small-font-size">This story was originally published by <a href="https://grist.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Grist</a>. Sign up for Grist’s <a href="https://go.grist.org/signup/weekly/partner?utm_campaign=republish-content&amp;utm_medium=syndication&amp;utm_source=partner" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">weekly newsletter here</a>.</p>
  1115.  
  1116.  
  1117.  
  1118. <p><strong>About a year ago</strong>,&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/extreme-weather/a-record-warm-streak-in-the-oceans-has-scientists-worried/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">the seas got unusually hot</a>, even by our current, overheated standards. Twelve months of broken records later, the oceans are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/oceans-record-hot-rcna143179" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">still more feverish</a>&nbsp;than climate models and normal fluctuations in global weather patterns can explain.</p>
  1119.  
  1120.  
  1121.  
  1122. <p>When the seas turn into bathwater, it threatens the survival of the planet’s coral reefs, home to&nbsp;<a href="https://phys.org/news/2023-03-biodiversity-coral-reefs-world-depth.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">a quarter of all marine life</a>&nbsp;and a source of sustenance for many people living along the world’s coasts. Mostly clustered in the shallow waters of the tropics, coral reefs have one of the lowest thresholds for rising temperatures of all the possible&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/climate-tipping-points-amazon-greenland-boreal-forest/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">“tipping points,”</a>&nbsp;the cascading feedback loops that set off large, abrupt changes in the ecosystems, weather patterns, and ice formations on Earth. Stable, existing systems wind up in new, completely different states: The lush Amazon rainforest, for example,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/04/magazine/amazon-tipping-point.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">might collapse into a grassy savanna</a>. Coral reefs might transform into seaweed-smothered graveyards.&nbsp;</p>
  1123.  
  1124.  
  1125.  
  1126. <p>Earlier this month, the world officially entered its fourth — and probably worst —&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/science/world-4th-coral-bleaching-event-official-climate/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">mass coral bleaching event</a>&nbsp;in history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the International Coral Reef Initiative. Hot water causes corals to expel the tiny algae that live in their tissues, which provide them with food (through photosynthesis) and also a rainbow of pigments. Separated from their algae, corals “bleach,” turning ghostly white, and start to starve.&nbsp;</p>
  1127.  
  1128.  
  1129.  
  1130. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Earlier this month, the world officially entered its fourth — and probably worst —&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/science/world-4th-coral-bleaching-event-official-climate/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">mass coral bleaching event</a>&nbsp;in history.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1131.  
  1132.  
  1133.  
  1134. <p>The Florida Keys, where water temperatures veered into hot-tub territory last year, saw its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/04/15/global-coral-bleaching-ocean-temperatures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">most severe bleaching event</a>&nbsp;to date, with scientists “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-17/after-mass-coral-bleaching-florida-scientists-prepare-for-another-hot-summer?sref=wINQCNXe" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">evacuating” thousands of corals</a>&nbsp;to tanks on land. In Australia, the iconic Great Barrier Reef is also facing&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/18/great-barrier-reef-coral-bleaching-australia/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">its biggest test yet</a>. In the Indian Ocean, even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/climate/coral-reefs-bleaching.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">coral species known to be resistant to hot temperatures</a>&nbsp;are bleaching.&nbsp;</p>
  1135.  
  1136.  
  1137.  
  1138. <p>“This is one of the key living systems that we thought was closest to a tipping point,” said Tim Lenton, a professor of climate change and Earth systems at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. “This is sort of horrible confirmation that it is.”&nbsp;</p>
  1139.  
  1140.  
  1141.  
  1142. <p>An estimated&nbsp;<a href="https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/coral-reefs.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">1 billion people around the world</a>&nbsp;benefit from coral reefs, which provide food and income, while also protecting coastal property from storms and flooding. The benefits add up to about&nbsp;<a href="https://sciencepolicyreview.org/2020/08/coral-reefs-are-critical-for-our-food-supply-tourism-and-ocean-health-we-can-protect-them-from-climate-change/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">$11 trillion a year</a>. With some scientists worried that coral reefs may have&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/climate/report-climate-tipping-points-new-level-danger/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">already passed a point of no return</a>, researchers are turning to desperate measures to save them, from building artificial reefs to attempts to cool down reefs through geoengineering.</p>
  1143.  
  1144.  
  1145.  
  1146. <p>Last year, the warmer weather pattern known as El Niño took hold of the globe,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/degrees-matter" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">temporarily pushing global average temperatures to 1.5 degrees&nbsp;</a>Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming over pre-industrial times. That’s precisely the level at which scientists have predicted that between&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/SR15_Chapter_3_LR.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">70</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/coral-reefs-extinct-global-warming-new-study/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">99 percent</a>&nbsp;of tropical reefs would disappear. With a cooler La Niña phase on the way this summer, it’s possible that corals will make it through the current bout of hot ocean temperatures. But each week high temperatures persist, another 1 percent of corals are predicted to bleach. By the early 2030s, global temperatures are&nbsp;<a href="https://grist.org/climate/the-worlds-most-ambitious-climate-goal-is-essentially-out-of-reach/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">on track to pass the 1.5 C</a>&nbsp;threshold for good, compared to around 1.2 C today.</p>
  1147.  
  1148.  
  1149.  
  1150. <p>Bleaching doesn’t spell certain death, but the corals that survive struggle to reproduce and are more susceptible to diseases. Even when reefs do recover, there’s usually a loss of species, said Didier Zoccola, a scientist in Monaco who has studied corals for decades. “You have winners and losers, and the losers, you don’t know if they are important in the ecosystem,” he said.</p>
  1151.  
  1152.  
  1153.  
  1154. <p>For a coral reef, the tipping point would come when bleaching becomes an annual event, according to David Kline, the executive director of the Pacific Blue Foundation, a nonprofit working to preserve reefs in Fiji. Species would go extinct, leaving only the most heat-tolerant creatures, the “cockroaches” of corals that can survive tough conditions.&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/seaweed-is-taking-over-coral-reefs-but-theres-a-gardening-solution-sea-weeding-212460" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Seaweed would start taking over</a>. Parts of the world may be approaching this point, if not already past it: The Great Barrier Reef, for example, has gone through&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/08/coral-bleaching-great-barrier-reef-australia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">five mass bleaching events in the last eight years</a>, leaving little chance for recovery. Florida has already lost more than&nbsp;<a href="https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/dec19/noaa-launches-mission-iconic-reefs-to-save-florida-keys-coral-reefs.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">90 percent</a>&nbsp;of its coral reefs.</p>
  1155.  
  1156.  
  1157.  
  1158. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>An estimated&nbsp;<a href="https://coast.noaa.gov/states/fast-facts/coral-reefs.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">1 billion people around the world</a>&nbsp;benefit from coral reefs, which provide food and income, while also protecting coastal property from storms and flooding.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1159.  
  1160.  
  1161.  
  1162. <p>“I think most scientists, myself included, would be very uncomfortable saying we’ve reached a tipping point,” said Deborah Brosnan, a longtime coral scientist who founded the reef restoration project OceanShot. “But in reality, are we very close to a tipping point? I believe we are, just judging by the scale of the bleaching that we’re seeing.”</p>
  1163.  
  1164.  
  1165.  
  1166. <p>Reefs around the world have already&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/september/over-half-of-coral-reef-cover-lost-since-1950.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">declined by half since the 1950s</a>&nbsp;because of climate change, overfishing, and pollution. Some scientists argue that the world may have already passed the point of no return for corals long ago,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.globalcoral.org/we-have-already-exceeded-the-upper-temperature-limit-for-coral-reef-ecosystems-which-are-dying-at-todays-co2-levels/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">as far back as the 1980s</a>, yet there’s no consensus. “If we really want to have healthy, diverse coral reefs in the future, we need to do something about our greenhouse gas emissions, like, right now,” Kline said.&nbsp;</p>
  1167.  
  1168.  
  1169.  
  1170. <p>Rising temperatures might have already set off other notable tipping points, such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/17/greenland-ice-sheet-on-brink-of-major-tipping-point-says-study" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">the accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet</a>&nbsp;and the thawing of the northern permafrost, which threatens to release vast amounts of&nbsp;methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Coral tipping points would unfold on a regional level, with giant blobs of hot ocean water wrecking reefs, what Lenton characterizes as a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44609-w" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">“clustered” tipping point</a>.</p>
  1171.  
  1172.  
  1173.  
  1174. <p>Coral reefs are so vulnerable, in part, because their existence is fragile in the first palace. Reefs are “a verdant explosion of life in a nutrient desert,” Lenton said, only able to exist because of “really strong reinforcing feedback loops within the system.” An intricate web of corals, algae, sponges, and microbes&nbsp;<a href="https://fiorelabsymbiosis.org/nutrient-cycling-on-coral-reefs/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">move essential nutrients like nitrogen</a>&nbsp;around, leading to a profusion of life. “It’s not surprising that if you push it too hard, or knock certain things out, you can tip it into a different ‘no coral’ state, or maybe several different states.”</p>
  1175.  
  1176.  
  1177.  
  1178. <p>Losing corals could lead to consequences you wouldn’t expect. For example, you can thank corals for the sand on many beaches — they help create it (coral&nbsp;<a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sand.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">skeletons turn into sand</a>) and protect beaches from erosion, with the structure of the reef calming waves before they reach shore. Reefs contribute to&nbsp;<a href="https://coral.org/en/coral-reefs-101/why-care-about-reefs/medicine/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">medical breakthroughs</a>&nbsp;— organisms found in them produce compounds used to treat cardiovascular disease and some types of cancer.</p>
  1179.  
  1180.  
  1181.  
  1182. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“It’s not surprising that if you push it too hard, or knock certain things out, you can tip it into a different ‘no coral’ state, or maybe several different states.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  1183.  
  1184.  
  1185.  
  1186. <p>Researchers are racing to salvage what’s left of corals and the ecosystems they support. A restoration project in the Caribbean that Brosnan founded, called OceanShot, is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coral-reefs-restoration-climate-change-ocean-shot-project-caribbean/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">building artificial reefs</a>&nbsp;where natural ones have collapsed. The tiered structures provide habitat for creatures that live in the reefs, both the larger species that live on top and the smaller ones that like to hide in crevices lower down. The installations have had good results, with dozens of fish species moving in, alongside invertebrates like lobsters. Even finicky black urchins transplanted on the reef decided to stay. Brosnan’s team is also hoping to deploy them in places where beaches are being lost, since the artificial reefs can also help prevent sand from washing away.</p>
  1187.  
  1188.  
  1189.  
  1190. <p>Some preservation attempts are pretty out there. Scientists with the&nbsp;<a href="https://nationalzoo.si.edu/center-for-species-survival/coral-reproduction-and-cryopreservation" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute</a>&nbsp;in Washington, D.C., for example, are working on deep-freezing coral sperm and larvae through&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/as-climate-change-and-pollution-imperil-coral-reefs-scientists-are-deep-freezing-corals-to-repopulate-future-oceans-224480" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">“cryopreservation,”</a>&nbsp;<em>Futurama</em>-style, hoping that they can repopulate oceans of the future. In the Great Barrier Reef, researchers have experimented with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/coral-reef-cloud-brightnening-australia/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">brightening clouds with sea salt</a>, a form of geoengineering, to try to protect corals from the hot sun.</p>
  1191.  
  1192.  
  1193.  
  1194. <p>Elsewhere, laboratories are breeding corals to withstand heat and ocean acidification. Zoccola works on one such project in Monaco, where scientists are using&nbsp;<a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000823" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">“assisted evolution”</a>&nbsp;to speed up nature’s process, since corals can’t adapt fast enough in the wild. He calls it a “Noah’s Ark” for corals, hoping that species can live in the lab until, one day, they’re ready to return to the ocean.<a href="https://grist.org/science/points-of-no-return/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
  1195. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/have-the-worlds-coral-reefs-past-the-point-of-no-return/">Have the World’s Coral Reefs Passed the Point of No Return?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1196. ]]></content:encoded>
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  1199. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  1205. <item>
  1206. <title>Let’s Not Nuclearize the Heavens</title>
  1207. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lets-not-nuclearize-the-heavens/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=lets-not-nuclearize-the-heavens</link>
  1208. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lets-not-nuclearize-the-heavens/#respond</comments>
  1210. <dc:creator><![CDATA[John Strausbaugh]]></dc:creator>
  1211. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:24:00 +0000</pubDate>
  1212. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1213. <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category>
  1214. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
  1215. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  1216. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  1217. <category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
  1218. <category><![CDATA[TD Column]]></category>
  1219. <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category>
  1220. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  1221. <category><![CDATA[nasa]]></category>
  1222. <category><![CDATA[nuclear disarmament]]></category>
  1223. <category><![CDATA[nuclear war]]></category>
  1224. <category><![CDATA[russia]]></category>
  1225. <category><![CDATA[satellite]]></category>
  1226. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295616</guid>
  1227.  
  1228. <description><![CDATA[<p>Russia’s emergent nuclear anti-satellite program highlights the dangers of viewing outer space as a battleground.</p>
  1229. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lets-not-nuclearize-the-heavens/">Let’s Not Nuclearize the Heavens</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1230. ]]></description>
  1231. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1232. <p class="has-drop-cap">Last August, the Russians sent a probe to the moon, something they had not attempted since 1976. It crashed. “This is another indicator of how the Soviet/Russian space program has deteriorated over the years,&#8221; Leroy Chiao, a former NASA astronaut, told Radio Free Europe. &#8220;The fact that they cannot mount a mission to the moon like they did in 1976 speaks volumes about the state of their aerospace industry today.&#8221;&nbsp;</p>
  1233.  
  1234.  
  1235.  
  1236. <p>Now the White House has warned that the Russians may be planning to put a nuclear anti-satellite weapon into space as soon as this year. This type of weapon, CNN reported, could “destroy satellites&nbsp;by creating&nbsp;a massive energy wave&nbsp;when detonated, potentially, crippling a vast swath of the commercial and government satellites that the world below depends on to talk on cell phones, pay bills and surf the internet.”&nbsp;</p>
  1237.  
  1238.  
  1239.  
  1240. <p>Putting a nuclear device on top of a rocket is a marriage of two very high-risk technologies. Given the Russian space program&#8217;s record of “<a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-lunar-landing-crash-space-program-problems/32557717.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">embarrassments, failures, and scandals</a>,” not to mention their history of carelessness with radioactive materials, maybe we should be as worried that they’ll fail as that they’ll succeed.</p>
  1241.  
  1242.  
  1243.  
  1244. <p>It’s not unknown, for instance, for a rocket to blow up on the launchpad. Such a catastrophe might not detonate the nuclear device, but it could damage it, spreading radiation within a few miles of the site. Or the rocket might explode — experience a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” in rocketeer jargon — as it ascended, dropping its damaged, radioactive payload somewhere else. One wouldn’t want to be at that spot, or anywhere nearby. There’s no knowing the yield of the hypothetical weapon. In the 1960s, the Soviets conducted high-altitude explosions of small nuclear devices with yields of three kilotons. As a benchmark, that’s only about a fifth the yield of the Hiroshima bomb. It’s still the equivalent of 3,000 tons of dynamite, plus localized radiation within a few miles&#8217; radius. Within that area, a mortality rate of 50% would be expected. What if that were a densely populated city like New York or Tokyo or, closer to home, Moscow?&nbsp;</p>
  1245.  
  1246.  
  1247.  
  1248. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;The fact that they cannot mount a mission to the moon like they did in 1976 speaks volumes about the state of their aerospace industry today.&#8221;</p></blockquote></figure>
  1249.  
  1250.  
  1251.  
  1252. <p>Let&#8217;s review the history. The Soviet space program scored stunning early successes in the space race with the Americans. They orbited Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957; sent the first probe to the Moon in 1959; and orbited Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, in 1961. These conquests look all the more remarkable now that we know how very ramshackle the program was. While trumpeting their undeniable victories, the Soviets hid their many failures. Poorly funded, squabbling for supplies and constantly hurried by ignorant political figures, Soviet scientists and engineers jerry-rigged rockets and space vehicles that were extremely hazardous and sometimes deadly. It was only after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 that we began to learn what a Potemkin space program it really was.</p>
  1253.  
  1254.  
  1255.  
  1256. <p>In Sputnik II, they put the dog Laika in orbit as a propaganda coup, knowing full well she would die up there. Her corpse circled the planet for five months before being cremated on reentry. Gagarin barely survived a fiery, tumbling reentry himself. Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was not so lucky. In 1967 his Soyuz capsule, rushed into service and plagued with problems, smashed into the ground and exploded, leaving him a charred lump unrecognizable as human. Three other cosmonauts died of asphyxiation when all the oxygen leaked from their capsule in 1971. They couldn’t fit into the capsule wearing life-saving spacesuits and helmets, so they were squeezed in wearing only wool outfits resembling leisure suits. And the Soviets still hold the record for the most deadly rocket accident ever, a monstrous launchpad explosion that killed as many as 165 people. There are numerous such examples of dangerous or deadly failures, most of which the Soviet government covered up at the time.&nbsp;</p>
  1257.  
  1258.  
  1259.  
  1260. <p>Things didn’t improve after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The cash-strapped Russian Federation that inherited the space program allowed already shoddy equipment and facilities to deteriorate further into dilapidation. Western visitors to the Russian space station Mir in the later 1990s were appalled by its dangerous decrepitude. </p>
  1261.  
  1262.  
  1263.  
  1264. <p>That tradition has continued. In 2019, The New York Times reported that a nuclear-powered cruise missile the Russians were testing exploded, killing at least seven workers at the test site and spreading radioactive material detected 25 miles away. Previous Russian tests of anti-satellite weaponry have not gone well either. In 2021, their military used a missile to destroy one of their own Soviet-era satellites in orbit. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/science/russia-anti-satellite-missile-test-debris.html?searchResultPosition=3" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">The resulting debris cloud forced the crew of seven aboard the ISS to shelter in docked spacecraft.</a> A NASA spokesperson deplored the test as “reckless and dangerous.” French defense minister Florence Parly colorfully condemned the Russians as “space vandals.”</p>
  1265.  
  1266.  
  1267.  
  1268. <p>Meanwhile, the Chernobyl catastrophe of 1986 is only the most familiar in a dismally long history of Russian carelessness with nuclear materials. In the Soviet years they test-fired nuclear weapons on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic an astounding 130 times. The most-nuked region on the planet, however, is a zone of Kazakhstan called by the appropriately sci-fi name the Semipalatinsk Polygon. From the very first Soviet atom bomb test in 1949 through to 1989, more than 450 nuclear devices were detonated there. Some 1.5 million people were exposed to the radiation, then monitored like lab rats to clock the effects. Related illnesses and abnormalities including genetic mutations persist to this day.&nbsp;</p>
  1269.  
  1270.  
  1271.  
  1272. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The cash-strapped Russian Federation that inherited the space program allowed already shoddy equipment and facilities to deteriorate further into dilapidation.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1273.  
  1274.  
  1275.  
  1276. <p>Chernobyl has not been the only nuclear plant they have mishandled. One of the largest and dirtiest, the Mayak plutonium facility in the Chelyabinsk region, was kept secret during the Soviet era. It has experienced more than one radiation-spewing incident, ranking not far behind the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters in impact, and dumped so much radioactive material in a local river and lake that fishing the river became a deadly pastime and the lake had to be filled in with concrete. As recently as 2017, the Mayak facility was believed to be “<a href="about:blank" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">the source of a radioactive cloud that hovered over Europe.</a>”</p>
  1277.  
  1278.  
  1279.  
  1280. <p>The Soviet Russians were also notorious for dumping radioactive waste in the ocean, making the Arctic’s&nbsp; Kara Sea “the world’s largest known nuclear dump,”&#8221; and sinking spent reactors near the coast of Japan. <a href="https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/radioactive-waste-and-spent-nuclear-fuel/2011-06-comment-radioactive-dump-in-moscow-a-ten-year-history-of-reckless-procrastination#:~:text=A%20part%20of%20the%20dump,the%20mid%2D20th%20century" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">They even ringed their own capital city Moscow, site of much nuclear research at the time, with radioactive dump sites that remain public hazards</a>. Small wonder all of Europe has been in a state of alarm since 2022, when invading Russian troops seized the huge Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.&nbsp;</p>
  1281.  
  1282.  
  1283.  
  1284. <p>The space race was an arms race from the start. The rockets that powered the nominally peaceful explorations of cosmonauts and astronauts were developed to carry nuclear warheads. In the 1960s, the U.S. and Soviet Union conducted high-altitude nuclear detonations the results of which were so alarmingly unpredictable that both sides agreed to an Outer Space Treaty in 1967, banning the use of nukes in space. It is still in effect, and all other spacefaring nations are signatories.</p>
  1285.  
  1286.  
  1287.  
  1288. <p class="is-td-marked">Although Putin denies that Russia is developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon, the U.S. and Japan have used the story to sponsor<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/19/us-japan-nuclear-weapons-ban-space-un-war" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"> a U.N. security council resolution</a> for renewed commitment to banning nuclear weapons in space. Russia has denounced the move as “yet another propaganda stunt by Washington.&#8221;</p>
  1289. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lets-not-nuclearize-the-heavens/">Let’s Not Nuclearize the Heavens</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1290. ]]></content:encoded>
  1292. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lets-not-nuclearize-the-heavens/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  1293. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  1296. <enclosure url="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AdobeStock_304816690-1040x585.jpeg" length="277349" type="image/jpeg" />
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  1299. <item>
  1300. <title>Two Vital Questions for the ‘Pod Save’ Crowd</title>
  1301. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/two-vital-questions-for-the-pod-save-crowd/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=two-vital-questions-for-the-pod-save-crowd</link>
  1302. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/two-vital-questions-for-the-pod-save-crowd/#respond</comments>
  1304. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Freddie deBoer]]></dc:creator>
  1305. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 15:23:33 +0000</pubDate>
  1306. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1307. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  1308. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  1309. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  1310. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  1311. <category><![CDATA[Election 2024]]></category>
  1312. <category><![CDATA[hillary clinton]]></category>
  1313. <category><![CDATA[joe biden]]></category>
  1314. <category><![CDATA[pod save america]]></category>
  1315. <category><![CDATA[ralph nader]]></category>
  1316. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295995</guid>
  1317.  
  1318. <description><![CDATA[<p>Democrats are overdue to take a tough look at their theory of politics.</p>
  1319. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/two-vital-questions-for-the-pod-save-crowd/">Two Vital Questions for the ‘Pod Save’ Crowd</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1320. ]]></description>
  1321. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1322. <p><em>The following story is co-published with&nbsp;<a href="https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/perhaps-liking-or-not-liking-taylor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Freddie deBoer’s Substack</a>.</em></p>
  1323.  
  1324.  
  1325.  
  1326. <p class="has-drop-cap">The podcast Pod Save America, a name which makes me want to commit arson, is a useful metonym for a brand of politics that fails and fails and fails and yet never finds itself far from power. It’s the approach of a type of scolding liberal realist who delights in ladling out condescension for the rest of us. The podcast and its associated media empire are led by former Obama administration apparatchiks, and the organization carries Barack Obama’s torch in the 2020s &#8211; it’s stentorian, bloodless, endlessly superior, averse to unbridled political passion, addicted to triangulation, and unrelentingly attached to the idea that there is a Right Way to do politics, which is supposed to result in both substantive and political success. (Recent history notwithstanding.) It’s appropriate that the abbreviation for the podcast would be PSA, as they embody a kind of patronizing liberal messaging that treats everyone else as a child who needs to be patiently informed about How Things Work, and always, always told to slow down in the pursuit of progress.</p>
  1327.  
  1328.  
  1329.  
  1330. <p>They embrace a kind of vague liberal social politics that catches on to the latest thing when it is safe to do so, kind of like how their former boss&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/united-states-government-general-news-63f51fcd69bb4ce18ed6b7306d1b3c89" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">waited until it was absolutely safe</a>&nbsp;before supporting gay marriage. They’re born organization kids, happiest and most secure within the structures of institutions and traditions that dramatically narrow the boundaries of the possible, freeing them from the moral duty to choose what’s right over what’s politically expedient. They hate Trump, naturally, seemingly unable to understand that the deracinated technocracy and adult-in-the-room incrementalism of the Obama administration directly contributed to Trump’s victory. (With a Democratic party addicted to driving the car of state in the exact middle of the road and a policy agenda that could not possibly fix the country’s anemic post-financial crisis economy, the conditions were perfect for a populist right demagogue like Trump to rise.) They’re firmly in favor of progress, provided that progress is defined in vague and unthreatening terms. And I’m sure they’re all good guys, just like most middle aged dads who donate to the NOW and are active in the PTA. The trouble is that, as Obama showed time and again, being a good guy is not enough.</p>
  1331.  
  1332.  
  1333.  
  1334. <p>I have two questions for them.</p>
  1335.  
  1336.  
  1337.  
  1338. <ol>
  1339. <li><strong>If leftists voting third party amounts to support for Trump on consequentialist grounds, doesn’t voting and advocating for Hillary Clinton also amount to support for Trump on the exact same grounds?</strong></li>
  1340. </ol>
  1341.  
  1342.  
  1343.  
  1344. <p>I made this point recently regarding Jon Chait and got a surprising amount of pushback. Surprising, that is, because the logic is unassailable. A leftist voter decides to vote for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary in 2016; after Bernie’s defeat, he decides to vote for Jill Stein. This supposedly subtracts a vote from Hillary. I have never understood this logic &#8211; a leftist is not a liberal nor necessarily a Democrat, and they no more owe the Democratic candidate a vote than a moderate conservative who also chooses to stay at home. But let’s accept this version of consequentialism in voting: if this is our logic, then <em>people who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary necessarily supported Trump. </em>Because she lost! Hillary lost the election! And no matter what the pink pussy hat brigade still says 8 years later, there is no individual human being more responsible for Trump’s victory than Hillary. She lost! It was her campaign, and she lost! She ignored the Rust Belt and assumed she had key states in the bag, followed Chuck Schumer’s <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/chuck-schumer-democrats-will-lose-blue-collar-whites-gain-suburbs/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">laughable advice</a>, hired Robby Mook’s useless ass, and ran a campaign based on celebrity glitz in an era of rampant inequality. If you voted for Hillary, you backed the wrong horse, and by any consequentialist logic you bear <em>more </em>responsibility than a non-voter. And there were many more Hillary primary voters than these supposed hordes of leftists who refused to vote for her in the general.</p>
  1345.  
  1346.  
  1347.  
  1348. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Establishment Democrats have tended to hate this type of messaging because it suggests that they have to actually <em>do </em>something economically.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1349.  
  1350.  
  1351.  
  1352. <p>For the Pod Save America boys, it seems that it’s always November 2000 and that every left challenger to machine Democrat dominance is a Florida lefty who voted for Ralph Nader. What’s always left out of the 2000 postmortems is that while only 24,000 registered Florida Democrats voted for Nader,&nbsp;<em><a href="https://reason.com/2016/08/03/ralph-nader-did-not-hand-2000-election/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">more than 300,000</a>&nbsp;</em>voted for Bush! Gore was such a terrible candidate that a number of Florida Democrats equal to the population of Cincinnati voted for the other team directly. And of course an affirmative vote for Bush is mathematically twice as consequential than a vote cast for Nader. Besides,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/lewis/pdf/greenreform9.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">this 2006 study</a>&nbsp;finds that the core assumption of the “blame Nader” crowd is wrong: Nader’s support was not made up of voters who would have voted for Gore if Nader hadn’t run. A large chunk of Nader’s Florida support came from voters who would have stayed at home absent Nader’s candidacy. You can complain that they’re stupid for that, but asking why a committed anti-Democratic leftist didn’t vote for Gore demonstrates fallacious thinking. What Al Gore could have done is to run a campaign&nbsp;<em>worth voting for.</em>&nbsp;As Jim Hightower&nbsp;<a href="https://www.salon.com/2000/11/28/hightower/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">pointed out</a>&nbsp;at the time of the election, in his 1992 campaign against George HW Bush, 62% of voters who made less than $50,000 a year voted for Bill Clinton. When Gore ran, he captured only 43% of that demographic. And that’s your election, right there, that’s an actual structural cause of Gore’s defeat &#8211; his inability to rally support from poorer voters.</p>
  1353.  
  1354.  
  1355.  
  1356. <p>Hightower chalked this erosion up to “four more years of income stagnation and decline for these families under the regime of the Clinton-Gore ‘New Democrats,’” which sounds right to me. Establishment Democrats have tended to hate this type of messaging because it suggests that they have to actually&nbsp;<em>do&nbsp;</em>something economically, which would entail raising taxes and in so doing risk alienating the wealthy donors who have captured the party. The pleasant surprise of the Biden administration has been its willingness to pursue aggressive initiatives that actually address the immense inequality and lower-income stagnation that have been the defining economic story of my lifetime.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2023/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">It’s paying dividends</a>. That kind of domestic-policy aggression was exactly what Barack Obama refused to attempt. He was too busy running for the title of “Most Reasonable President Ever,” which of course was folly while Congressional Republicans burned him in effigy and relentlessly pulled the country right. Being reasonable never got Obama anywhere.</p>
  1357.  
  1358.  
  1359.  
  1360. <p>Of course, the most obvious answer for why Obama liberals have been so enamored of the blame Nader/Bernie/Stein voters attitude is that they are substantively opposed to the left-wing economic program such voters support. Second question!</p>
  1361.  
  1362.  
  1363.  
  1364. <ol start="2">
  1365. <li><strong>If you pledge to “vote blue no matter who,” promising Democrats your vote no matter who they nominate, what leverage will you ever have over the party? Once you give away your vote for nothing, how do you get any of what you want?</strong></li>
  1366. </ol>
  1367.  
  1368.  
  1369.  
  1370. <p>I have been searching for an answer to this question my entire adult life. Here’s how it’s supposed to work. You, as a voter, want things. These are based on self-interest, on moral principle, and assorted other impulses. Representative democracy is supposed to give you an opportunity to pursue such things; you just might not have the votes to get them. But your vote is your voice and, crucially, your leverage. If a candidate or party doesn’t represent your values, won’t pledge to give you what you want, then you withhold your vote from them. They can then decide if your vote and the votes of people who feel the same way as you do are worth pursuing by embracing your preferences. If the number of people who feel the same way as you grows large enough, eventually it becomes very politically expensive to ignore you. Your individual vote is worth very little. But if enough of you feel the same way &#8211; well, you can do things like vote en masse for George W. Bush despite your Democratic registration and hand him the presidency. Or you might eventually get the Democrats to implement a policy agenda that broadens their coalition and enables a 50-state strategy instead of piecing together coalitions of disparate groups that you hope turn out in sufficient numbers.</p>
  1371.  
  1372.  
  1373.  
  1374. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Your vote is your voice and, crucially, your leverage.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1375.  
  1376.  
  1377.  
  1378. <p>Instead, people like me are constantly told to vote blue no matter who, to support Democrats in any election regardless of what those individual Democrats stand for. To do otherwise, supposedly, is to support the Republicans, and because Trump is a particularly inflammatory figure, they emphasize that you’re supporting Trump specifically. (Even if the race in question is for, like, comptroller of Cleveland.) I lived a particularly aggressive version of this, as a young man, as Joe Lieberman was my senator. Liberman represented the repudiation of almost everything I believed in, but the pressure from Connecticut Dems to support him was overwhelming. But he was a neoconservative in all but name and epitomized the cautious, establishmentarian version of Democratic politics that has dominated in my lifetime. So I couldn’t vote for him. Well, they always told us to use the primary process, so we did, and we defeated Joe Lieberman! And for our trouble most of the “blue no matter who” types in Connecticut voted against the Democratic candidate and reelected Lieberman, but not before calling us traitors and anti-Semites. Womp womp!</p>
  1379.  
  1380.  
  1381.  
  1382. <p>So here’s the question: once you’ve pledged your vote to a party in perpetuity without any qualifications and with zero expectation of getting anything in return… how do you make that party do what you want? You’ve already promised to give them the only thing they care about. Your vote’s already committed, so why on earth should they move in the direction of your values the slightest bit? It’s like a wife promising to never leave her husband no matter how badly he treats her; if the commitment is real, there’s no reason for him to change his behavior. At all. Am I supposed to believe that the Democratic party &#8211; the Bill Clinton, Tom Daschle, Zell Miller Democratic party &#8211; is going to give me what I want out of some sense of obligation, when I’ve made it clear I’ll support them no matter what they do, forever? That does not make sense. People love to say that there’s no other choice than a worse choice. But what if the Democrats and Republicans just keep getting worse in tandem? What if the Democrats remain one inch better than the Republicans, forever? How does actual progress happen? How do you get an actually-good option, instead of just “better than the Republicans,” which is the lowest of low bars? I have no idea. I don’t think the people who insist on “vote blue no matter who” have any idea, either.</p>
  1383.  
  1384.  
  1385.  
  1386. <p>Of course, as with the idea that third party voters are really votes for Republicans while votes for Democrats who predictably fail are not, this is really about substance, not process. “Vote blue no matter who” people are <em>substantively </em>opposed to the agenda of the left wing. Which is fine, go ahead and advocate for what you advocate. But the idea that leftists should keep voting Democratic in the face of decades of bad Democrat policies, supposedly for their own good, is just a transparent trick. It’s a way to dramatically narrow the in-coalition debate while pretending that you’re just being pragmatic. “You have to support this candidate no matter what, by the way the fact that the candidate agrees with me on everything is mere coincidence.” Try harder.</p>
  1387.  
  1388.  
  1389.  
  1390. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The idea that leftists should keep voting Democratic in the face of decades of bad Democrat policies, supposedly for their own good, is just a transparent trick.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1391.  
  1392.  
  1393.  
  1394. <p>I’m prepared for these questions to have answers that I don’t like. They do however strike me as very sensible questions, and yet Democrats often react to them with anger. And if we’re going to be in the business of condescending to each other, allow me to point out that for all of the post-2016 election recriminations the Democratic party has still not done essential work in figuring out what went wrong, which of its fundamental assumptions about politics had led it astray, and whether it really benefits them to treat left-wing voters with such unbridled aggression. I don’t listen to a lot of Pod Saved America, but I don’t think those guys have figured it out either. Hillary Clinton was a uniquely bad candidate who earned the nomination thanks to a massive amount of insider advantage, which she received because it was “her turn.” We can now agree that that was bad, right? How do you stop that from happening again? Can we stop caring about “turns”? Looking forward, Trump is a unique threat, but also uniquely vulnerable thanks to his personal instability, the incompetence of the people he surrounds himself with, and his lack of policy coherence. What happens when the Democrats have to again run against candidates who enjoy at least a minimal amount of stability, competence, and a coherent policy agenda? It’s a frightening question.</p>
  1395.  
  1396.  
  1397.  
  1398. <p class="is-td-marked">People keep telling me that the Democrats have actually moved left; for my part, I’ve been saying for awhile now that Biden has cleared the extremely low bar of being the best president of my lifetime. For any of this progress to mean anything, the party has to truly leave its triangulating, center-right, Clintonite past behind it. And to do that it has to ask itself uncomfortable questions.</p>
  1399. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/two-vital-questions-for-the-pod-save-crowd/">Two Vital Questions for the ‘Pod Save’ Crowd</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1400. ]]></content:encoded>
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  1403. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  1409. <item>
  1410. <title>The Supreme Court Is Poised to Rescue Donald Trump</title>
  1411. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-is-poised-to-rescue-donald-trump/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-supreme-court-is-poised-to-rescue-donald-trump</link>
  1412. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-is-poised-to-rescue-donald-trump/#respond</comments>
  1414. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Bill Blum]]></dc:creator>
  1415. <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:21:53 +0000</pubDate>
  1416. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1417. <category><![CDATA[Column]]></category>
  1418. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
  1419. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  1420. <category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
  1421. <category><![CDATA[TD Column]]></category>
  1422. <category><![CDATA[TD Original]]></category>
  1423. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  1424. <category><![CDATA[donald trump]]></category>
  1425. <category><![CDATA[election interference]]></category>
  1426. <category><![CDATA[jack smith]]></category>
  1427. <category><![CDATA[presidential immunity]]></category>
  1428. <category><![CDATA[samuel alito]]></category>
  1429. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295946</guid>
  1430.  
  1431. <description><![CDATA[<p>If Trump is granted presidential immunity in Jack Smith’s election subversion case, say goodbye to the rule of law.</p>
  1432. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-is-poised-to-rescue-donald-trump/">The Supreme Court Is Poised to Rescue Donald Trump</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1433. ]]></description>
  1434. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1435. <p class="has-drop-cap">Should Donald Trump be accorded immunity from criminal prosecution for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election? If you think the question is a no-brainer for the nine elite lawyers who comprise the Supreme Court, I have bad tidings. The court that <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">annulled</a> <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Roe v. Wade</a>, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">gutted the Voting Rights Act</a> and reinterpreted the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2007/07-290" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Second</a> <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Amendment</a> to transform the U.S. into a legalized shooting gallery is unlikely to save our withering democracy from Trump or future presidents who think they are above the law. </p>
  1436.  
  1437.  
  1438.  
  1439. <p>Last Thursday, the court heard oral arguments in the <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trump-v-united-states-3/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">election-subversion case</a> brought against Trump by Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith. Although it is difficult to predict the outcome of Supreme Court cases from the content and tone of oral arguments, it is safe to say that the day went poorly for Smith. While none of the justices seemed prepared to give Trump the absolute immunity he is <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-awaiting-ruling-says-presidents-must-complete-total-immunity-rcna134483" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">demanding</a>, the panel’s six Republican appointees signaled repeatedly, during the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2023/23-939_l5gm.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">marathon 160-minute hearing</a>, that they will offer him a limited but substantial degree of protection. This will effectively delay his subversion trial until after the next election, if not derail the trial altogether. </p>
  1440.  
  1441.  
  1442.  
  1443. <p>It was clear the fix was in when Justice Clarence Thomas took his usual seat on the bench next to Chief Justice John Roberts. By any fair standard of judicial integrity, Thomas should have recused himself in light of his insurrectionist wife Ginni’s outspoken and zealous support of Trump’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/31/clarence-thomas-supreme-court-trump-2024-eligibility" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">big lie</a>” about the 2020 election. But Thomas <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/unequal-justice-clarence-thomas-isnt-going-anywhere/">has no integrity</a> and knows no shame. </p>
  1444.  
  1445.  
  1446.  
  1447. <p>As the court’s most senior associate justice, Thomas led off the hearing with a softball question to Trump’s lead attorney, former <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._John_Sauer" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Missouri Solicitor General D. John Sauer</a>, about the legal source of the immunity claim. </p>
  1448.  
  1449.  
  1450.  
  1451. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Although it is difficult to predict the outcome of Supreme Court cases from the content and tone of oral arguments, it is safe to say that the day went poorly for Smith.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1452.  
  1453.  
  1454.  
  1455. <p>“The source of the immunity,” Sauer replied, is “rooted” in the Constitution, “principally…in the Executive Vesting Clause of Article II, Section 1.” The clause, he said, not only vests the president with the powers explicitly listed in Article II [such as the authority to appoint ambassadors], but also encompasses “all powers that were originally understood to be included” within the president’s purview. </p>
  1456.  
  1457.  
  1458.  
  1459. <p>There is, of course, nothing in Article II or any other section of the Constitution that confers immunity from criminal prosecution on sitting or former presidents who have broken the law. <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/founding-era-history-doesnt-support-trumps-immunity-claim" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">As many constitutional scholars have noted</a>, Trump’s immunity claim finds no support in “originalism” as a theory of constitutional interpretation. The actual debates of the founding era were focused on setting limits to the powers of the presidency. The founding generation had many faults, but to its credit, it did not intend to swap a British king for an American monarch. </p>
  1460.  
  1461.  
  1462.  
  1463. <p>No matter. Thomas permitted Sauer to lay out his theory and allowed his bludgeoning of history to pass. Accelerating into full Trump-mode, Sauer declared that under the doctrine of separation of powers, presidents must be given immunity from judicial scrutiny of their “official acts.” Otherwise, he argued:</p>
  1464.  
  1465.  
  1466.  
  1467. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
  1468. <p>If a president can be charged, put on trial and imprisoned for his most controversial decisions as soon as he leaves office, that looming threat will distort the president&#8217;s decision-making precisely when bold and fearless action is most needed. Every current president will face de facto blackmail and extortion by his political rivals while he is still in office.</p>
  1469. </blockquote>
  1470.  
  1471.  
  1472.  
  1473. <p>The distinction between a president’s official and personal acts was addressed by the Supreme Court in <a href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep457/usrep457731/usrep457731.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Nixon v. Fitzgerald</a>, a 1982 decision involving a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by a federal contractor against disgraced former president Richard Nixon. Fitzgerald held that presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity” in civil cases seeking damages arising from their official acts and acts “within the outer perimeter” of their official duties. Sauer urged the court to import the Fitzgerald standard to criminal law.</p>
  1474.  
  1475.  
  1476.  
  1477. <p>Sauer’s proposal set off alarm bells among the court’s three Democratic appointees. </p>
  1478.  
  1479.  
  1480.  
  1481. <p>“How about if the president orders the military to stage a coup?,” asked Justice Elena Kagan. </p>
  1482.  
  1483.  
  1484.  
  1485. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Sauer’s proposal set off alarm bells among the court’s three Democratic appointees.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1486.  
  1487.  
  1488.  
  1489. <p>“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor inquired. </p>
  1490.  
  1491.  
  1492.  
  1493. <p>Both hypotheticals, Sauer answered, could be deemed official acts warranting immunity, depending on the surrounding circumstances. </p>
  1494.  
  1495.  
  1496.  
  1497. <p>Summing up the implications of Sauer’s position, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson predicted that the president could become the “most powerful person in the world and [have] no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is for turning the Oval Office into…the seat of criminal activity in this country.”  </p>
  1498.  
  1499.  
  1500.  
  1501. <p>Following Sauer at the lectern on behalf of the government, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dreeben" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Michael Dreeben</a>, a former deputy solicitor general and veteran Supreme Court litigator, sounded dismayed. “There is no immunity that is in the Constitution,” he reminded the justices, “unless this Court creates it today.”</p>
  1502.  
  1503.  
  1504.  
  1505. <p>That, it seems, is precisely the goal of the court’s reactionary majority. </p>
  1506.  
  1507.  
  1508.  
  1509. <p>“We’re writing a rule for the ages,” Justice Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court appointee, told Dreeben. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s second high-court appointee, added approvingly, “This case has huge implications for the presidency, for the future of the presidency, for the future of the country.” </p>
  1510.  
  1511.  
  1512.  
  1513. <p>None displayed more contempt for Special Counsel Smith than Justice Samuel Alito, author of the Dobbs decision that jettisoned Roe. The real danger facing the country, Alito asserted, comes not from insurrectionist presidents but from overzealous deep-state prosecutors seeking to harm their political opponents, leading “us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy…”</p>
  1514.  
  1515.  
  1516.  
  1517. <p>Taken aback by the Orwellian nature of Alito’s reasoning, Dreeben could only respond, “I think it&#8217;s exactly the opposite, Justice Alito.”</p>
  1518.  
  1519.  
  1520.  
  1521. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>None displayed more contempt for Special Counsel Smith than Justice Samuel Alito, author of the Dobbs decision that jettisoned Roe.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1522.  
  1523.  
  1524.  
  1525. <p>The thinnest of silver linings appeared in a colloquy between Dreeben and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s third appointee, who suggested the case could be remanded to District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to segregate the official acts alleged in the indictment lodged against Trump from the personal acts Trump undertook during his reelection campaign. This would allow the trial to proceed for personal conduct only.</p>
  1526.  
  1527.  
  1528.  
  1529. <p>But even assuming that such segregation is technically possible, and that Chief Justice Roberts would provide a decisive fifth vote in favor of Barrett’s solution, the trial would inevitably be delayed until after the next election. And that would suit Trump just fine. </p>
  1530.  
  1531.  
  1532.  
  1533. <p class="is-td-marked">Delay is central to the Trump game plan. If he wins in November, he will be able to dismiss the federal prosecutions against him and leverage the power of the presidency to halt any remaining state litigation in New York and Georgia for the duration of his second term. All he needs is a little help from his friends.</p>
  1534. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-supreme-court-is-poised-to-rescue-donald-trump/">The Supreme Court Is Poised to Rescue Donald Trump</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1535. ]]></content:encoded>
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  1538. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  1544. <item>
  1545. <title>Argentina&#8217;s Milei Guts Public Media</title>
  1546. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/argentinas-milei-guts-public-media/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=argentinas-milei-guts-public-media</link>
  1547. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/argentinas-milei-guts-public-media/#respond</comments>
  1549. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Cholakian /  NACLA]]></dc:creator>
  1550. <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:01:08 +0000</pubDate>
  1551. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1552. <category><![CDATA[Americas]]></category>
  1553. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  1554. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  1555. <category><![CDATA[argentina]]></category>
  1556. <category><![CDATA[freedom of the press]]></category>
  1557. <category><![CDATA[javier milei]]></category>
  1558. <category><![CDATA[public media]]></category>
  1559. <category><![CDATA[Télam]]></category>
  1560. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295940</guid>
  1561.  
  1562. <description><![CDATA[<p>The shutdown of a state-owned media agency threatens the right to information.</p>
  1563. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/argentinas-milei-guts-public-media/">Argentina&#8217;s Milei Guts Public Media</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1564. ]]></description>
  1565. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1566. <p><strong>Argentine president Javier Milei</strong> announced the closure of the national news agency, Télam, in his State of the Nation address on March 1. &#8220;We are going to close the Télam agency, which has been used during the last decades as a Kirchnerist propaganda agency,&#8221; <a href="https://youtu.be/fque7zGsjVA?feature=shared&amp;t=2200" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">said</a> Milei. The previous presidents, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, were only in power for 16 years, while the state-owned company has been in existence for 79 years.</p>
  1567.  
  1568.  
  1569.  
  1570. <p>Two days later, the intervenor of the public media system, Diego Chaher, issued an order to fence off access to the agency&#8217;s two headquarters, setting up permanent police surveillance to prevent personnel from entering. That same night he sent an email to workers informing them that they were &#8220;released&#8221; from their obligation to work for one week, while still receiving their salaries. Access to the agency&#8217;s subscriber news services and public access&nbsp;<a href="https://www.telam.com.ar/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">website</a>&nbsp;was also canceled. The situation remains unchanged and there is no official information on the future of the company. With the absence of Télam, the only body producing decentralized news content throughout the nation disappears.</p>
  1571.  
  1572.  
  1573.  
  1574. <p>Ever since the government canceled all activity, Télam workers have <a href="https://somostelam.com.ar/noticias/politica/trabajadores-de-telam-cumplen-30-dias-de-acampe-y-lucha-en-defensa-de-la-agencia-nacional-de-noticias/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">camped out</a> in front of the offices in the city of Buenos Aires. They take turns day and night, making sure that no equipment is removed and no facilities are destroyed. Nicolás Luna, a representative of the workers, pointed out that Milei had declared Télam his enemy after the <a href="https://nacla.org/milei-pone-a-prueba-el-poder-del-sistema-politico-argentino" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">failure of the Omnibus Law</a>. &#8220;This is a decision that not only we are suffering, because it is happening throughout the State, where tens of thousands of workers are being dismissed,&#8221; said Luna.</p>
  1575.  
  1576.  
  1577.  
  1578. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Implications of Media Concentration for Democracy</h3>
  1579.  
  1580.  
  1581.  
  1582. <p>According to Martín García, former president of the agency between 2010 and 2012, Télam disseminated news and expert opinions from all provinces in multiple formats to both national and international media. García said, &#8220;Télam is the only media that covers the whole country with journalists who see, are informed and analyze what is happening in each place.&#8221; Télam produced and distributed nationwide information in an equitable manner. Both large commercial media outlets and small provincial, community, and university outlets had access to Télam&#8217;s coverage. Until its closure, 2,800 radio stations in small towns had access every hour to the national news panorama produced by Télam, which they could use free of charge.</p>
  1583.  
  1584.  
  1585.  
  1586. <p>In the two months since Télam&#8217;s shutdown, rumors have increased about the closure or privatization of other public media. These other outlets include Televisión Pública Argentina, Radio Nacional, the educational channels <a href="https://encuentro.gob.ar/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Encuentro</a> and <a href="https://pakapaka.gob.ar/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Paka Paka</a>, and the sports channel <a href="https://deportv.gob.ar/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">DeporTv</a>, all of which belong to the state-owned company Contenidos Públicos.</p>
  1587.  
  1588.  
  1589.  
  1590. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>With the absence of Télam, the only body producing decentralized news content throughout the nation disappears.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1591.  
  1592.  
  1593.  
  1594. <p>&#8220;Without public media, there is no democratic or pluralistic communication. In Argentina we are heading towards unprecedented media concentration&#8221;, said Rosaura Audi, former Undersecretary of Public Media. During the last fifteen years of discussion about Argentine media, the danger of concentration has become evident, since the owners are allowed to own the means of information transmission, home Internet and cable TV services, mobile telephone services, and simultaneously they are the producers of television, radio, and graphic media content. Modern legislation prevents cross-ownership of these services. In light of this, state-owned media counterbalances the power of the large economic media groups. This <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2023/argentina" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">concentration</a> affects the plurality of content and the diversity of news circulating about Argentina in the rest of the world. The growing concentration of the media in Argentina, mostly aligned with right-wing ideas, constitutes a limit to the democratization of society, which needs a multiplicity of points of view and a plurality of voices.</p>
  1595.  
  1596.  
  1597.  
  1598. <p>&#8220;Since this administration took office, we knew that it would go after everything state-run, and in particular, the public media,&#8221; says Agustín Lecchi, general secretary of the Press Union of Buenos Aires (SIPREBA) and a public television worker. Milei has been threatening public media since his campaign, &#8220;but that doesn&#8217;t mean that he will be able to implement what he says he is going to do,&#8221; said Lecchi. Although there is an important&nbsp;<a href="https://perio.unlp.edu.ar/ojs/index.php/question/article/view/2151/1919" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">history of frustrated attempts to shut down public media, particularly during dictatorships</a>, Milei&#8217;s decree enables the intervention of public media without appointing the collegiate board of directors that corresponds by law. This measure opens the door to modify their objectives, dispose of their tangible and intangible assets, sell all or part of the companies or order their definitive closure. Before the decree, these operations required the approval of the National Congress.</p>
  1599.  
  1600.  
  1601.  
  1602. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Un “vaciamiento de la pantalla”</h3>
  1603.  
  1604.  
  1605.  
  1606. <p>Télam is the largest state-owned news agency in Latin America, with 803 clients in Argentina and 45 abroad, with subscriptions in its five service units: text, photography, video, audio and infographics. According to a <a href="https://somostelam.com.ar/noticias/politica/telam-presente-e-historia-de-la-agencia-de-bandera-de-argentina/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">report issued by the workers</a> after the suspension, the agency produced <em>per month</em> around 12,000 cables; 6,000 photos; 800 bulletins; 70 infographics; 150 audios and 400 videos. Monthly, over 63,000 users interacted with subscription-based services, while nearly 9 million people visited the web site.</p>
  1607.  
  1608.  
  1609.  
  1610. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;In addition to breaking news, plurality and archive material available for consultation was lost.&#8221;</p></blockquote></figure>
  1611.  
  1612.  
  1613.  
  1614. <p>Since Télam&#8217;s services have been suspended, media outlets throughout Argentina have been impacted. Irina Sternik, a journalist specializing in technology and media, gathered testimonies from colleagues all over the country for her newsletter <a href="https://ladobnews.substack.com/p/dan-ganas-de-llorar-una-semana-sin" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Lado B news</a>. She detailed the responses she received: &#8220;The testimonies are shocking. In addition to breaking news, plurality and archive material available for consultation was lost.&#8221; As a journalist of Televisión Pública Argentina, Sternik shared her relationship with Télam’s work. &#8220;I usually surf Télam&#8217;s website and I notice the difference in quality between the agency&#8217;s coverage and the other media, which in general copy their cables. They are verified articles, enriched with perspective and full of data.&#8221; <em>(From the first conversation we had on the subject up to the present, the public television station has not renewed Sternik&#8217;s contract).</em></p>
  1615.  
  1616.  
  1617.  
  1618. <p>Télam&#8217;s paralysis is an indication of encroachment on different public outlets. At the national television station, all production was canceled, except for two news programs on weekdays. In the rest of the weekday time slots and during weekends, they broadcast recorded programs and old movies. Currently, from midnight until dawn, the channel permanently broadcasts a still image taken from a public camera that focuses on the obelisk of Buenos Aires. This has never happened in the history of the television channel. &#8220;We are undergoing brutal downsizing that affects us economically, but above all this is a&nbsp;<em>vaciamiento de la pantalla&nbsp;</em>(hollowing out of the screen),&#8221; said Lecchi. This “hollowing out of the screen” infringes upon the right to information in Argentina, especially for those who rely on the channel as an easily accessible news outlet. At the same time, it facilitates the consolidation of a hegemonic model of information production that favors the current, right wing administration.</p>
  1619.  
  1620.  
  1621.  
  1622. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Right to Information at Risk</h3>
  1623.  
  1624.  
  1625.  
  1626. <p>The cuts to workers and programming are also part of the decisions of Radio Nacional Argentina&#8217;s management, led by Héctor Cavallero, a retired show producer who has no previous experience in radio broadcasting. &#8220;Since this government took office there has been a drastic reduction of personnel, most of them workers from the provinces,&#8221; said Fernando Piana, journalist and delegate of the Association of State Workers at the radio station.</p>
  1627.  
  1628.  
  1629.  
  1630. <p>&#8220;In December they laid off 160 workers who on average were paid less than 100 US dollars a month, and in the last few weeks 90 people were laid off. They represent almost 20 percent of the total workforce,&#8221; added Piana. Radio Nacional Argentina has radio stations in about 50 locations in the country, including the Antarctic territory. The current management decided that all of them will stop broadcasting their own programs during prime time and will have to broadcast only content produced in Buenos Aires. The production of each location is now relegated to non-prime time slots. Programming will be dedicated to entertainment or local news packages that do not contradict the agenda produced by the central management, whose main goal is to neither contradict nor criticize the proposals of the national government.</p>
  1631.  
  1632.  
  1633.  
  1634. <p>No public media authority has mentioned restrictions on content, however there are <a href="https://somostelam.com.ar/noticias/politica/las-y-los-trabajadores-de-la-tvp-revelaron-los-hechos-de-censura-que-el-gobierno-de-milei-ejecuta-en-esa-senal-y-advirtieron-el-derecho-a-la-informacion-no-se-negocia/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">topics being silenced and journalists are under pressure</a>. The decision to cancel weekend news broadcasts on public television was made precisely on the eve of March 24, the day on which the beginning of the bloodiest dictatorship in Argentina&#8217;s history is remembered. For the first time in 40 years, the station did not broadcast the 24M march, <a href="https://nacla.org/hundreds-thousands-argentinians-uphold-memory" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">attended by hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country</a>. Similarly, Televisión Pública was the only national channel that did not broadcast the mobilization in defense of public education held on April 23. Hundreds of thousands of Argentines <a href="https://www.infobae.com/politica/2024/04/24/una-multitud-defendio-el-valor-de-la-educacion-publica-y-pidio-un-limite-al-ajuste-en-las-universidades/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">took to the streets</a> in the city of Buenos Aires and at least twenty other cities across the country, <a href="https://www.infobae.com/politica/2024/04/24/una-multitud-defendio-el-valor-de-la-educacion-publica-y-pidio-un-limite-al-ajuste-en-las-universidades/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">calling for more university funding and protesting against Milei’s proposed austerity measures</a>.</p>
  1635.  
  1636.  
  1637.  
  1638. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;The Media Secretary asks us not to use radio stations and/or their networks to show solidarity with Télam. Only use official information.&#8221;</p></blockquote></figure>
  1639.  
  1640.  
  1641.  
  1642. <p>In the case of Radio Nacional, a message was sent to the directors of all the localities regarding Télam&#8217;s closure. The message, which was circulated through informal messaging, said: &#8220;Important. The Media Secretary asks us not to use radio stations and/or their networks to show solidarity with Télam. Only use official information.&#8221; Across media outlets, workers agree that the pressure exerted has opened the door to self-censorship.</p>
  1643.  
  1644.  
  1645.  
  1646. <p>Furthermore, there are rumors of possible business deals based on the sale of real estate. There are many speculations on this matter, since there are many properties highly coveted for their real estate value (the headquarters of Televisión Pública, the plot of land where the transmitting station of Radio Nacional Buenos Aires is located, the headquarters of the same radio station in the tourist city of San Martín de los Andes or in the city of Esquel). However, for the time being, none of these transactions may be carried out without the authorization of the Congress or without having modified the ownership of the media.</p>
  1647.  
  1648.  
  1649.  
  1650. <p>These public outlets are not only dedicated to producing news material. They also have teams dedicated to retrieving and cataloging archival materials of great historical value for researchers, press workers, and the general public. In 2013, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.archivorta.com.ar/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Archivo de Radio y Televisión Pública</a>&nbsp;(Public Radio and Television Archive, RTA) was created for Televisión Pública and Radio Nacional. Its goal is to &#8220;organize, preserve, digitize and make audiovisual and sound material available to the public.&#8221; This work was discontinued during the administration of former conservative President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019). It suffers the same fate during this current period.</p>
  1651.  
  1652.  
  1653.  
  1654. <p>Télam, on the other hand, administers, organizes and shares an archive of news wires and an invaluable repository of photographs, such as the only ones taken during the war over the Malvinas Islands by Argentine photographers. In 2015, Télam began a process of recovery, restoration, digitization, and cataloging of photographs and negatives existing since 1972. By December 2023, nearly 3.5 million images had been digitized. This process was carried out by the agency&#8217;s employees.</p>
  1655.  
  1656.  
  1657.  
  1658. <p>For Martín García, Télam and the public media system &#8220;is the organized memory of the country.&#8221; Today this material is inaccessible and, consequently, this collective memory runs the risk of being erased forever.</p>
  1659. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/argentinas-milei-guts-public-media/">Argentina&#8217;s Milei Guts Public Media</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1660. ]]></content:encoded>
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  1669. <item>
  1670. <title>Veterans Exposed to Agent Orange in the U.S. Await Compensation</title>
  1671. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/veterans-exposed-to-agent-orange-in-the-u-s-await-compensation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=veterans-exposed-to-agent-orange-in-the-u-s-await-compensation</link>
  1672. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/veterans-exposed-to-agent-orange-in-the-u-s-await-compensation/#respond</comments>
  1674. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Hannah Norman, Patricia Kime /  KFF Health News]]></dc:creator>
  1675. <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:48:22 +0000</pubDate>
  1676. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  1677. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
  1678. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
  1679. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
  1680. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  1681. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  1682. <category><![CDATA[Wounds of War]]></category>
  1683. <category><![CDATA[agent orange]]></category>
  1684. <category><![CDATA[cancer]]></category>
  1685. <category><![CDATA[ford ord]]></category>
  1686. <category><![CDATA[veterans affairs]]></category>
  1687. <category><![CDATA[vietnam war]]></category>
  1688. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295929</guid>
  1689.  
  1690. <description><![CDATA[<p>While the U.S. military used the herbicide to defoliate the jungles of Southeast Asia, it sprayed the same chemicals to kill poison oak and other weeds in northern California.</p>
  1691. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/veterans-exposed-to-agent-orange-in-the-u-s-await-compensation/">Veterans Exposed to Agent Orange in the U.S. Await Compensation</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1692. ]]></description>
  1693. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1694. <p><strong>As a young GI at Fort Ord</strong> in Monterey County, California, Dean Osborn spent much of his time in the oceanside woodlands, training on soil and guzzling water from streams and aquifers now known to be contaminated with cancer-causing pollutants.</p>
  1695.  
  1696.  
  1697.  
  1698. <p>“They were marching the snot out of us,” he said, recalling his year and a half stationed on the base, from 1979 to 1980. He also remembers, not so fondly, the poison oak pervasive across the 28,000-acre installation that closed in 1994. He went on sick call at least three times because of the overwhelmingly itchy rash.</p>
  1699.  
  1700.  
  1701.  
  1702. <p>Mounting evidence shows that as far back as the 1950s, in an effort to kill the ubiquitous poison oak and other weeds at the Army base, the military experimented with and sprayed the powerful herbicide combination known colloquially as Agent Orange.</p>
  1703.  
  1704.  
  1705.  
  1706. <p>While the U.S. military used the herbicide to defoliate the dense jungles of Vietnam and adjoining countries, it was contaminating the land and waters of coastal California with the same chemicals, according to documents.</p>
  1707.  
  1708.  
  1709.  
  1710. <p>The Defense Department has publicly acknowledged that during the Vietnam War era it stored Agent Orange at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport, Mississippi, and the former Kelly Air Force Base in Texas, and tested it at Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base.</p>
  1711.  
  1712.  
  1713.  
  1714. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>According to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44603882" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">a 1956 article</a> in the journal The Military Engineer, the use of Agent Orange herbicides at Fort Ord led to a “drastic reduction in trainee dermatitis casualties.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  1715.  
  1716.  
  1717.  
  1718. <p>According to the Government Accountability Office, however, the Pentagon’s list of sites where herbicides were tested went more than a decade without being updated and lacked specificity. GAO analysts described the list in 2018 as “inaccurate and incomplete.”</p>
  1719.  
  1720.  
  1721.  
  1722. <p>Fort Ord was not included. It is among about four dozen bases that the government has excluded but where Pat Elder, an environmental activist, said he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.militarypoisons.org/latest-news/federal-government-hides-the-truth-about-agent-orange-contamination-at-dozens-of-bases-in-the-us" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><u>has documented</u>&nbsp;</a>the use or storage of Agent Orange.</p>
  1723.  
  1724.  
  1725.  
  1726. <p>According to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44603882" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">a 1956 article</a>&nbsp;in the journal The Military Engineer, the use of Agent Orange herbicides at Fort Ord led to a “drastic reduction in trainee dermatitis casualties.”</p>
  1727.  
  1728.  
  1729.  
  1730. <p>“In training areas, such as Fort Ord, where poison oak has been extremely troublesome to military personnel, a well-organized chemical war has been waged against this woody plant pest,” the article noted.</p>
  1731.  
  1732.  
  1733.  
  1734. <p>Other documents, including a report by an Army agronomist as well as documents related to hazardous material cleanups, point to the use of Agent Orange at the sprawling base that 1.5 million service members cycled through from 1917 to 1994.</p>
  1735.  
  1736.  
  1737.  
  1738. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘The Most Toxic Chemical’</h3>
  1739.  
  1740.  
  1741.  
  1742. <p>Agent Orange is a 50-50 mixture of two ingredients,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/basics.asp#:~:text=The%20two%20active%20ingredients%20in,unwanted%20byproduct%20of%20herbicide%20production." rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">known as 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T</a>. Herbicides with the same chemical structure slightly modified were available off the shelf, sold commercially in massive amounts, and used at practically every base in the U.S., said Gerson Smoger, a lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court for Vietnam veterans to have the right to sue Agent Orange manufacturers. The combo was also used by farmers, forest workers, and other civilians across the country.</p>
  1743.  
  1744.  
  1745.  
  1746. <p>The chemical 2,4,5-T contains the dioxin 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin or TCDD, a known carcinogen linked to several&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/84-104/default.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">cancers, chronic conditions and birth defects</a>. A&nbsp;recent&nbsp;<a href="https://www.brown.edu/news/2024-02-13/agent-orange" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Brown University study</a>&nbsp;tied Agent Orange&nbsp;exposure to&nbsp;brain tissue&nbsp;damage similar to that caused by Alzheimer’s. Acknowledging its harm to human health, the Environmental Protection Agency&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236351/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">banned the use of 2,4,5-T</a>&nbsp;in the U.S. in 1979. Still, the other weed killer, 2,4-D is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Southern-Ag-Killer-Control-Broad-Leaf/dp/B0072289CA/ref=asc_df_B0072289CA/?gclid=CjwKCAjwrIixBhBbEiwACEqDJdLjrBVvY34yva3_m5Ujo6C_N7cRjMHSXiYQ9AA5sFCU3wajX3bU4RoCuxkQAvD_BwE&amp;hvadid=198106292047&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvdvcmdl&amp;hvlocint&amp;hvlocphy=9031927&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvpone&amp;hvpos&amp;hvptwo&amp;hvqmt&amp;hvrand=6618261512544302455&amp;hvtargid=pla-318912141769&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;mcid=1724f2b38ac03256a08769f99e52667d&amp;psc=1&amp;tag=hyprod-20" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">sold off-the-shelf</a>&nbsp;today.</p>
  1747.  
  1748.  
  1749.  
  1750. <p>“The bottom line is TCDD is the most toxic chemical that man has ever made,” Smoger said.</p>
  1751.  
  1752.  
  1753.  
  1754. <p>For years, the Department of Veteran Affairs has provided vets who served in Vietnam <a href="https://www.va.gov/disability/eligibility/hazardous-materials-exposure/agent-orange/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">disability compensation</a> for diseases considered to be connected to exposure to Agent Orange for military use from 1962 to 1975.</p>
  1755.  
  1756.  
  1757.  
  1758. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“The bottom line is TCDD is the most toxic chemical that man has ever made.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  1759.  
  1760.  
  1761.  
  1762. <p>Decades after Osborn’s military service, the 68-year-old veteran, who never served in Vietnam, has battled one health crisis after another: a spot on his left lung and kidney, hypothyroidism, and prostate cancer, an illness that has been tied to Agent Orange exposure.</p>
  1763.  
  1764.  
  1765.  
  1766. <p>He says many of his old buddies from Fort Ord are sick as well.</p>
  1767.  
  1768.  
  1769.  
  1770. <p>“Now we have cancers that we didn’t deserve,” Osborn said.</p>
  1771.  
  1772.  
  1773.  
  1774. <p>The VA considers prostate cancer a “<a href="https://www.va.gov/disability/eligibility/hazardous-materials-exposure/agent-orange/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">presumptive condition</a>” for Agent Orange disability compensation, acknowledging that those who served in specific locations were likely exposed and that their illnesses are tied to their military service. The designation expedites affected veterans’ claims.</p>
  1775.  
  1776.  
  1777.  
  1778. <p>But when Osborn requested his benefits, he was denied. The letter said the cancer was “more likely due to your age,” not military service.</p>
  1779.  
  1780.  
  1781.  
  1782. <p>“This didn’t happen because of my age. This is happening because we were stationed in the places that were being sprayed and contaminated,” he said.</p>
  1783.  
  1784.  
  1785.  
  1786. <p>Studies show that diseases caused by environmental factors&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/tracking/topics/ChildrensEnvironmentalHealth.htm#:~:text=Health%20problems%20from%20an%20environmental,exposed%20later%20in%20their%20life." rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">can take years</a>&nbsp;to emerge. And to make things more perplexing for veterans stationed at Fort Ord, contamination from other harmful chemicals, like the industrial cleaner trichloroethylene, have been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/12/19/millions-of-vets-got-health-care-and-benefits-under-pact-act-thousands-left-out-want-same-chance.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">well documented</a>&nbsp;on the former base, landing it on the EPA’s&nbsp;<a href="https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/SiteProfiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=second.Cleanup&amp;id=0902783#bkground" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Superfund site list</a>&nbsp;in 1990.</p>
  1787.  
  1788.  
  1789.  
  1790. <p>“We typically expect to see the effect years down the line,” said Lawrence Liu, a doctor at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center&nbsp;<a href="https://jhoonline.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13045-023-01521-6" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">who has studied Agent Orange</a>. “Carcinogens have additive effects.”</p>
  1791.  
  1792.  
  1793.  
  1794. <p>In February, the VA&nbsp;<a href="https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-presumes-exposure-agent-orange-herbicides/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">proposed a rule</a>&nbsp;that for the first time would allow compensation to veterans for Agent Orange exposure at 17 U.S. bases in a dozen states where the herbicide was tested, used, or stored.</p>
  1795.  
  1796.  
  1797.  
  1798. <p>Fort Ord is not on that list either, because the VA’s list is based on the Defense Department’s 2019 update.</p>
  1799.  
  1800.  
  1801.  
  1802. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>When Osborn requested his benefits, he was denied. The letter said the cancer was “more likely due to your age,” not military service.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1803.  
  1804.  
  1805.  
  1806. <p>“It’s a very tricky question,” Smoger said, emphasizing how widely the herbicides were used both at military bases and by civilians for similar purposes. “On one hand, we were service. We were exposed. On the other hand, why are you different from the people across the road that are privately using it?”</p>
  1807.  
  1808.  
  1809.  
  1810. <p>The VA says that it based its proposed rule on information provided by the Defense Department.</p>
  1811.  
  1812.  
  1813.  
  1814. <p>“DoD’s review found no documentation of herbicide use, testing or storage at Fort Ord. Therefore, VA does not have sufficient evidence to extend a presumption of exposure to herbicides based on service at Fort Ord at this time,” VA press secretary Terrence Hayes said in an email.</p>
  1815.  
  1816.  
  1817.  
  1818. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Documentation</h3>
  1819.  
  1820.  
  1821.  
  1822. <p>Yet environmental activist Elder, with help from toxic and remediation specialist Denise Trabbic-Pointer and former VA physician Kyle Horton, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24544048-final-lawmaker-ao-evidence-4-4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">compiled seven documents</a> showing otherwise. They include a journal article, the agronomist report, and cleanup-related documents as recent as 1995 — all pointing to widespread herbicide use and experimentation as well as lasting contamination at the base.</p>
  1823.  
  1824.  
  1825.  
  1826. <p>Though the documents do not call the herbicide by its colorful nickname, they routinely cite the combination of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. A “<a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/tr/ADA238101" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">hazardous waste minimization assessment</a>” dated 1991 reported 80,000 pounds of herbicides used annually at Fort Ord. It separately lists 2,4,5-T as a product for which “substitutions are necessary to minimize the environmental impacts.”</p>
  1827.  
  1828.  
  1829.  
  1830. <p>The poison oak “control program” started in 1951, according to a report by&nbsp;<a href="https://ucanr.edu/repository/fileaccess.cfm?article=164771&amp;p=LKIILR" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Army agronomist Floyd Otter</a>, four years before the U.S. deepened its involvement in Vietnam. Otter detailed the use of these chemicals alone and in combination with diesel oil or other compounds, at rates generally between “one to two gallons of liquid herbicide” per acre.</p>
  1831.  
  1832.  
  1833.  
  1834. <p>“In conclusion, we are fairly well satisfied with the methods,” Otter wrote, noting he was interested in “any way in which costs can be lowered or quicker kill obtained.”</p>
  1835.  
  1836.  
  1837.  
  1838. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The poison oak “control program” started in 1951, according to a report by <a href="https://ucanr.edu/repository/fileaccess.cfm?article=164771&amp;p=LKIILR" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Army agronomist Floyd Otter</a>, four years before the U.S. deepened its involvement in Vietnam.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1839.  
  1840.  
  1841.  
  1842. <p>An article published in&nbsp;<a href="https://ucanr.edu/repository/fileaccess.cfm?article=167649&amp;p=CFTOHD" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">California Agriculture</a>&nbsp;more than a decade later includes before and after photos showing the effectiveness of chemical brush control used in a live-oak woodland at Fort Ord, again citing both chemicals in Agent Orange. The Defense Department did not respond to questions sent April 10 about the contamination or say when the Army stopped using 2,4,5-T at Fort Ord.</p>
  1843.  
  1844.  
  1845.  
  1846. <p>“What’s most compelling about Fort Ord is it was actually used for the same purpose it was used for in Vietnam — to kill plants — not just storing it,” said Julie Akey, a former Army linguist who worked at the base in the 1990s and later developed the rare blood cancer multiple myeloma.</p>
  1847.  
  1848.  
  1849.  
  1850. <p>Akey, who also worked with Elder, runs a Facebook group and keeps a list of people stationed on the base who later were diagnosed with cancer and other illnesses. So far, she has tallied more than 1,400 former Fort Ord residents who became sick.</p>
  1851.  
  1852.  
  1853.  
  1854. <p>Elder’s findings have galvanized the group to speak up during a public comment period for the VA’s proposed rule. Of 546 comments, 67 are from veterans and others urging the inclusion of Fort Ord. Hundreds of others have written in regarding the use of Agent Orange and other chemicals at their bases.</p>
  1855.  
  1856.  
  1857.  
  1858. <p>While the herbicide itself sticks around for only a short time, the contaminant TCDD can linger in sediment for decades, said Kenneth Olson, a professor emeritus of soil science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.</p>
  1859.  
  1860.  
  1861.  
  1862. <p>A&nbsp;<a href="https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/9100NSVM.txt?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&amp;Client=EPA&amp;Index=1995%20Thru%201999&amp;Docs=&amp;Query=&amp;Time=&amp;EndTime=&amp;SearchMethod=1&amp;TocRestrict=n&amp;Toc=&amp;TocEntry=&amp;QField=&amp;QFieldYear=&amp;QFieldMonth=&amp;QFieldDay=&amp;UseQField=&amp;IntQFieldOp=0&amp;ExtQFieldOp=0&amp;XmlQuery=&amp;File=D%3A%5CZYFILES%5CINDEX%20DATA%5C95THRU99%5CTXT%5C00000028%5C9100NSVM.txt&amp;User=ANONYMOUS&amp;Password=anonymous&amp;SortMethod=h%7C-&amp;MaximumDocuments=1&amp;FuzzyDegree=0&amp;ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&amp;Display=hpfr&amp;DefSeekPage=x&amp;SearchBack=ZyActionL&amp;Back=ZyActionS&amp;BackDesc=Results%20page&amp;MaximumPages=1&amp;ZyEntry=1" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">1995 report</a>&nbsp;from the Army’s Sacramento Corps of Engineers, which documented chemicals detected in the soil at Fort Ord, found levels of TCDD at 3.5 parts per trillion, more than double the remediation goal at the time of 1.2 ppt. Olson calls the evidence convincing.</p>
  1863.  
  1864.  
  1865.  
  1866. <p>“It clearly supports the fact that 2,4,5-T with unknown amounts of dioxin TCDD was applied on the Fort Ord grounds and border fences,” Olson said. “Some military and civilian personnel would have been exposed.”</p>
  1867.  
  1868.  
  1869.  
  1870. <p>The Department of Defense&nbsp;<a href="https://home.army.mil/detrick/application/files/8715/8031/4270/Agent_Orange_A_History_of_its_Use_Disposition_and_Environmental_Fate_Final_Report_30_Jun_08.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">has described</a>&nbsp;the Agent Orange used in Vietnam as a “tactical herbicide,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/ced-78-158#:~:text=From%20August%201965%20to%201971,gallons%20per%20acre%20sprayed%20undiluted." rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">more concentrated than</a>&nbsp;what was commercially available in the U.S. But Olson said&nbsp;<a href="https://www.scirp.org/pdf/ojss_2023112316153069.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">his research</a>&nbsp;suggests that even if the grounds maintenance crew used commercial versions of 2,4,5-T, which was available in the federal supply catalog, the soldiers would have been exposed to the dioxin TCDD.</p>
  1871.  
  1872.  
  1873.  
  1874. <p>The half dozen veterans who spoke with KFF Health News said they want the military to take responsibility.</p>
  1875.  
  1876.  
  1877.  
  1878. <p>The Pentagon did not respond to questions regarding the upkeep of the list or the process for adding locations.</p>
  1879.  
  1880.  
  1881.  
  1882. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Until Fort Ord is recognized by the VA as a presumptive site, it’s probably going to be a long, difficult struggle to get some kind of compensation.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  1883.  
  1884.  
  1885.  
  1886. <p>In the meantime, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is studying potential chemical exposure among people who worked and lived on Fort Ord between 1985 and 1994. However, the agency is evaluating drinking water for contaminants such as trichloroethylene and not contamination or pollution from other chemicals such as Agent Orange or those found in firefighting foams.</p>
  1887.  
  1888.  
  1889.  
  1890. <p>Other veterans are frustrated by the VA’s long process to recognize their illnesses and believe they were sickened by exposure at Fort Ord.</p>
  1891.  
  1892.  
  1893.  
  1894. <p>“Until Fort Ord is recognized by the VA as a presumptive site, it’s probably going to be a long, difficult struggle to get some kind of compensation,” said Mike Duris, a 72-year-old veteran diagnosed with prostate cancer four years ago who ultimately underwent surgery.</p>
  1895.  
  1896.  
  1897.  
  1898. <p>Like so many others, he wonders about the connection to his training at Fort Ord in the early ’70s — drinking the contaminated water and marching, crawling, and digging holes in the dirt.</p>
  1899.  
  1900.  
  1901.  
  1902. <p>“Often, where there is smoke, there’s fire,” Duris said.</p>
  1903.  
  1904.  
  1905.  
  1906. <p class="has-small-font-size"><em><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/about-us" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">KFF Health News</a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at <a href="https://www.kff.org/about-us/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">KFF</a> — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.</em><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/26/us-agent-orange-exposure-not-covered-va/73451111007/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
  1907. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/veterans-exposed-to-agent-orange-in-the-u-s-await-compensation/">Veterans Exposed to Agent Orange in the U.S. Await Compensation</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1908. ]]></content:encoded>
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  1917. <item>
  1918. <title>EPA Proposal Could Multiply Acephate In Tomatoes and Celery</title>
  1919. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/epa-proposal-could-multiply-acephate-in-tomatoes-and-celery/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=epa-proposal-could-multiply-acephate-in-tomatoes-and-celery</link>
  1920. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/epa-proposal-could-multiply-acephate-in-tomatoes-and-celery/#respond</comments>
  1922. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Sharon Lerner /  ProPublica]]></dc:creator>
  1923. <pubDate>Mon, 29 Apr 2024 15:35:56 +0000</pubDate>
  1924. <category><![CDATA[Business & Economy]]></category>
  1925. <category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
  1926. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
  1927. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  1928. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  1929. <category><![CDATA[acephate]]></category>
  1930. <category><![CDATA[adhd]]></category>
  1931. <category><![CDATA[autism]]></category>
  1932. <category><![CDATA[epa]]></category>
  1933. <category><![CDATA[pesticide]]></category>
  1934. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295919</guid>
  1935.  
  1936. <description><![CDATA[<p>The EPA is relying on industry-backed tests to relax regulations on acephate, which has been linked to neurodevelopmental disorders.</p>
  1937. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/epa-proposal-could-multiply-acephate-in-tomatoes-and-celery/">EPA Proposal Could Multiply Acephate In Tomatoes and Celery</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  1938. ]]></description>
  1939. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  1940. <p class="has-small-font-size">This story was originally published by <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-acephate-pesticide-adhd-autism-regulations" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">ProPublica</a>.</p>
  1941.  
  1942.  
  1943.  
  1944. <p><strong>When you bite</strong> into a piece of celery, there’s a fair chance that it will be coated with a thin film of a toxic pesticide called acephate.</p>
  1945.  
  1946.  
  1947.  
  1948. <p>The bug killer — also used on tomatoes, cranberries, Brussels sprouts and other fruits and vegetables — belongs to a class of compounds linked to autism, hyperactivity and reduced scores on intelligence tests in children.</p>
  1949.  
  1950.  
  1951.  
  1952. <p>But rather than banning the pesticide, as the European Union did more than 20 years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed easing restrictions on acephate.</p>
  1953.  
  1954.  
  1955.  
  1956. <p>The federal agency’s assessment lays out a plan that would allow 10 times more acephate on food than is acceptable under the current limits. The proposal was based in large part on the results of a new battery of tests that are performed on disembodied cells rather than whole lab animals. After exposing groups of cells to the pesticide, the agency found “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24549684-epa-hq-opp-2008-0915-0057_content" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">little to no evidence</a>” that acephate and a chemical created when it breaks down in the body harm the developing brain, according to an August 2023 EPA document.</p>
  1957.  
  1958.  
  1959.  
  1960. <p>The EPA is moving ahead with the proposal despite multiple studies linking acephate to developmental problems in children and lab rats, and despite warnings from several scientific groups against using the new tests on cells to relax regulations, interviews and records reviewed by ProPublica show.</p>
  1961.  
  1962.  
  1963.  
  1964. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Rather than banning the pesticide, as the European Union did more than 20 years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently proposed easing restrictions on acephate.</p></blockquote></figure>
  1965.  
  1966.  
  1967.  
  1968. <p>To create the new tests designed to measure the impact of chemicals on the growing brain, the EPA worked with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.oecd.org/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development</a>, which comprises some of the world’s wealthiest democratic countries and conducts research on economic, social and scientific issues. The OECD has&nbsp;<a href="https://one.oecd.org/document/ENV/CBC/MONO(2023)13/en/pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">warned against using the tests to conclude a chemical does not interfere</a>&nbsp;with the brain’s development.</p>
  1969.  
  1970.  
  1971.  
  1972. <p>A scientific advisory panel the EPA consulted found that, because of major limitations, the tests “may not be representative of many processes and mechanisms that could” harm the developing nervous system. California pesticide regulators have argued that the new tests are not yet reliable enough to discount results of the older animal tests. And the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/children/chpac" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee</a>, a second group of advisers handpicked by the EPA, also warned against using results of the nonanimal tests to dismiss concerns.</p>
  1973.  
  1974.  
  1975.  
  1976. <p>“It’s exactly what we recommended against,” Veena Singla, a member of the children’s committee who also teaches at Columbia University, said of the EPA’s acephate proposal. “Children’s development is exquisitely sensitive to toxicants. … It’s disappointing they’re not following the science.”</p>
  1977.  
  1978.  
  1979.  
  1980. <p>The EPA’s proposal, which could be finalized later this year, marks one of the first times the agency has recommended changing its legal safety threshold largely based on nonanimal tests designed to measure a chemical’s impact on the developing brain. And in March, the EPA released a draft assessment of another pesticide in the same class, malathion, that also proposes loosening restrictions based on similar tests.</p>
  1981.  
  1982.  
  1983.  
  1984. <p>The proposed relaxing of restrictions on both chemicals comes even as the Biden administration has been strengthening limits on several other environmental contaminants, including some&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-accelerated-action-four-organophosphate-pesticides-based-updated" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">closely related pesticides</a>.</p>
  1985.  
  1986.  
  1987.  
  1988. <p>In response to questions from ProPublica, the EPA acknowledged that it “will need to continually build scientific confidence” in these new methods but said that the introduction of the nonanimal tests to predict the danger chemicals pose to the developing brain “has not been done in haste. Rather, a methodical, step-wise approach has been implemented over the course of more than a decade.”</p>
  1989.  
  1990.  
  1991.  
  1992. <p>The agency said its recent review of acephate included a thorough examination of a variety of scientific studies and that, even with its proposed changes, children and infants would still be protected.</p>
  1993.  
  1994.  
  1995.  
  1996. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“It will put children at an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and ADHD that we already know are linked to this class of chemicals.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  1997.  
  1998.  
  1999.  
  2000. <p>The EPA expects to start accepting public comments on the acephate proposal in the coming months before it makes a final decision. The agency anticipates soliciting comments on malathion this summer.</p>
  2001.  
  2002.  
  2003.  
  2004. <p>Some environmental scientists strongly oppose loosening the restrictions on both acephate and malathion, arguing that the new tests are not reliable enough to capture all the hazards a chemical poses to the developing brain.</p>
  2005.  
  2006.  
  2007.  
  2008. <p>“It will put children at an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and ADHD that we already know are linked to this class of chemicals,” said Rashmi Joglekar, a toxicologist at the&nbsp;<a href="https://prhe.ucsf.edu/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment</a>&nbsp;at the University of California, San Francisco.</p>
  2009.  
  2010.  
  2011.  
  2012. <p>Health and environmental scientists are concerned about more than the direct impact of having potentially greater amounts of acephate and malathion on celery and other produce. They also worry that using the new tests as a basis for allowing more pesticides on crops will set a dangerous precedent for other brain-harming chemicals.</p>
  2013.  
  2014.  
  2015.  
  2016. <p>“I think the companies see this as a new way over a 10- or 20-year period to gradually lobby” the EPA “to allow higher levels of pesticides in food,” said Charles Benbrook, an agricultural economist who has monitored pesticide regulation for decades. “If they can convince regulators to not pay attention to animal studies, they have a very good chance of raising the allowable exposure levels.”</p>
  2017.  
  2018.  
  2019.  
  2020. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Industry Helped Fashion EPA’s Testing Strategy</h3>
  2021.  
  2022.  
  2023.  
  2024. <p>Since its founding in 1970, the EPA has relied on studies of mice, rats, guinea pigs and other species to set exposure limits for chemicals. The lab animals serve as a proxy for humans. Scientists expose them to different doses of substances and watch to see what levels cause cancer, reproductive problems, irritation to the skin and eyes, or other conditions. Some tests look specifically at chemicals’ effects on the offspring of rats exposed during pregnancy, and some of those tests focus on the development of their brains and nervous systems.</p>
  2025.  
  2026.  
  2027.  
  2028. <p>But over the past decade, chemical manufacturers and animal rights advocates have argued for phasing out the tests on the grounds they are impractical and inhumane. The animal experiments are also expensive, and the pesticide industry, which by law shoulders the cost of testing its products, is among the biggest proponents of the change.</p>
  2029.  
  2030.  
  2031.  
  2032. <p>The EPA has allowed the chemical industry and animal rights groups to help fashion its testing strategy. Agency officials have co-authored articles and held workshops on the use of the cell-based tests to regulate chemicals alongside representatives of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as well as Corteva Agriscience, BASF and Syngenta Crop Protection, companies that make pesticides regulated by the EPA.</p>
  2033.  
  2034.  
  2035.  
  2036. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The EPA has allowed the chemical industry and animal rights groups to help fashion its testing strategy.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2037.  
  2038.  
  2039.  
  2040. <p>The EPA said its scientists have been working to develop the nonanimal tests for decades with other government and scientific organizations, both nationally and internationally.</p>
  2041.  
  2042.  
  2043.  
  2044. <p>“It is absurd to describe those scientific efforts as an apparent conflict of interest,” the agency said in a statement.</p>
  2045.  
  2046.  
  2047.  
  2048. <p>The EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has previously come under fire for its willingness to allow pesticides onto the market without required toxicity testing. In 2018,&nbsp;<a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">as The Intercept reported</a>, staff members held a party to celebrate a milestone: The number of legally required tests the office had waived for pesticide companies had reached 1,000. A science adviser to the office at the time said the move spared companies more than $6 million in expenses.</p>
  2049.  
  2050.  
  2051.  
  2052. <p>While phasing out animal experiments would save money and animal lives, experiments involving collections of cells do not always accurately predict how entire organisms will respond to exposure to a toxic chemical. The new cell-based tests and computer techniques that are sometimes used with them can be reliable predictors of straightforward effects like eye or skin irritation. But they are not yet up to the task of modeling the complex, real-world learning disorders that have been linked to acephate and malathion, according to Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a>, an environmental advocacy organization.</p>
  2053.  
  2054.  
  2055.  
  2056. <p>The new tests can show whether a chemical can kill a brain cell. And they can show if a chemical affects how a brain cell connects with other brain cells, said Sass.</p>
  2057.  
  2058.  
  2059.  
  2060. <p>“But these tests can’t show that a kid is going to be able to sit through class and not go to the principal’s office,” she said.</p>
  2061.  
  2062.  
  2063.  
  2064. <p>While the cell-based tests may point to certain harms, they are likely to miss others, said Sass, who likens their use to fishing with a loose net. “You only know what you caught — the big stuff,” she said. “You don’t know about all the little stuff that got through.”</p>
  2065.  
  2066.  
  2067.  
  2068. <p>A 2023 study revealed the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653522035287" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">failure of the&nbsp;</a><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653522035287" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">cell-based tests</a><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653522035287" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">&nbsp;to detect certain problems</a>. In it, scientists exposed brain cells to 28 chemicals known to interfere with the development of the nervous system. Although the tests were specifically designed to assess whether chemicals harm growing brains, they failed to clearly identify harm in one-third of the substances known to cause these very problems. Instead of registering as harmful, the test results on these established developmental neurotoxins were either borderline or negative.</p>
  2069.  
  2070.  
  2071.  
  2072. <p>Because of these potential blind spots and other uncertainties associated with the tests, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has <a href="https://one.oecd.org/document/ENV/CBC/MONO(2023)13/en/pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">advised against interpreting results of the nonanimal tests</a> as evidence that a chemical doesn’t damage the brain. Several scientific groups have recommended that the EPA do the same.</p>
  2073.  
  2074.  
  2075.  
  2076. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs has previously come under fire for its willingness to allow pesticides onto the market without required toxicity testing.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2077.  
  2078.  
  2079.  
  2080. <p>A federal advisory panel of scientists assembled to advise the EPA on pesticide-related issues published a 2020 report that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24529288-unedited-nams-op-sap-report-epa-hq-opp-2020-0263-0054_content" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">identified numerous limitations and gaps in the nonanimal studies</a>, finding that they “underestimated the complexity of nervous system development.”</p>
  2081.  
  2082.  
  2083.  
  2084. <p>In 2021, the Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, a group the EPA created to provide advice on how to best protect children from environmental threats,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-02/documents/2021.01.26_chpac_tsca_charge_response_letter.pdf" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">warned the agency</a>&nbsp;that, “due to important limitations,” the test results “cannot be used to rule-out a specific hazard.”</p>
  2085.  
  2086.  
  2087.  
  2088. <p>In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24537742-oehha-op-sap-comments-epa-hq-opp-2020-0263-0037_attachment_1" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">comments to the EPA</a>, California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation also cautioned the agency against using the tests to conclude that a chemical doesn’t cause specific harms. The California regulators emphasized that the traditional battery of animal tests was still necessary to understand complex outcomes like the effects on children’s developing brains.</p>
  2089.  
  2090.  
  2091.  
  2092. <p>“To abandon it at this time would be to abandon a critical support for health-protective decisions,” they wrote.</p>
  2093.  
  2094.  
  2095.  
  2096. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">EPA Accused of Double Standard</h3>
  2097.  
  2098.  
  2099.  
  2100. <p>As much as 12 million pounds of acephate were used on soybeans, Brussels sprouts and other crops in 2019, according to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey. The federal agency estimates that up to 30% of celery, 35% of lettuce and 20% of cauliflower and peppers were grown with acephate. Malathion is used on crops such as strawberries, blueberries and asparagus. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits the use of most synthetic pesticides, including acephate and malathion, to grow and process products certified by the agency as organic.)</p>
  2101.  
  2102.  
  2103.  
  2104. <p>Acephate and malathion belong to a class of chemicals called organophosphates, which U.S. farmers have used for decades because they efficiently kill aphids, fire ants and other pests. But what makes the pesticides good bug killers — their ability to interfere with signals sent between nerve cells — also makes them dangerous to people. For years, there has been a scientific consensus that&nbsp;<a href="https://archive.epa.gov/pesticides/regulating/laws/fqpa/web/html/kidpesticide.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">children are particularly vulnerable to the harms of pesticides</a>, a recognition that led the EPA to strengthen restrictions on them. But with both acephate and malathion, the agency is now proposing to remove that extra layer of protection.</p>
  2105.  
  2106.  
  2107.  
  2108. <p>The EPA effectively banned another organophosphate pesticide, chlorpyrifos, in 2021, based in part on evidence linking it to ADHD, autism and reduced IQ in children. (In response to a lawsuit brought by a company that sells the pesticide and several agricultural groups, a court vacated the ban in December, allowing the resumed use of chlorpyrifos on certain crops, including cherries, strawberries and wheat.) While some health and farmworker groups are petitioning the EPA to ban all organophosphate pesticides, the agency is arguing that it can adequately protect children by limiting the amount farmers can use.</p>
  2109.  
  2110.  
  2111.  
  2112. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>As much as 12 million pounds of acephate were used on soybeans, Brussels sprouts and other crops in 2019, according to the most recent estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2113.  
  2114.  
  2115.  
  2116. <p>Several studies suggest that, even at currently allowable levels, acephate may already be causing learning disabilities in children exposed to it while in the uterus or in their first years of life. In 2017, a team of University of California, Berkeley researchers, partly funded by the EPA,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5644974/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">found that children</a>&nbsp;of Californians who, while pregnant, lived within 1 kilometer of where the pesticide was applied had lower IQ scores and worse verbal comprehension on average than children of people who lived further away. Two years later, a group of UCLA scientists reported that mothers who lived near areas where acephate was used during their pregnancies had children who were at an increased risk of autism with an intellectual disability.</p>
  2117.  
  2118.  
  2119.  
  2120. <p>The EPA considered this research when deciding to relax the limits on acephate use but stated that flaws and inconsistencies made these epidemiological studies “not compelling.” The agency also dismissed a rat study submitted to the EPA in 2005 in which the pups of mother rats exposed to higher levels of acephate were, on average, less likely to move than the pups of mothers exposed to lower levels. The EPA told ProPublica that “no conclusions could be drawn” from the experiment, citing the “high variability of the data” it produced. But some scientists outside the agency find that study a particularly worrisome indication of the pesticide’s potential to harm children.</p>
  2121.  
  2122.  
  2123.  
  2124. <p>In its proposals to increase the allowable amount of both acephate and malathion on food, the EPA also had to look past other potentially concerning test results. Some of the cell-based tests of acephate showed borderline results for interference with brain functions, while some of the tests of malathion clearly indicated specific problems, including interference with the connections between nerve cells and the growth of certain parts of nerve cells. Several scientists interviewed by ProPublica said that such results demand further investigation.</p>
  2125.  
  2126.  
  2127.  
  2128. <p>Some scientists see a double standard in the agency accepting the imperfect nonanimal tests while citing flaws in other research as reasons to dismiss it.</p>
  2129.  
  2130.  
  2131.  
  2132. <p>“They’re acknowledging limitations in epidemiology while at the same time not acknowledging the even greater limitations of using a clump of cells in a petri dish to try to model what’s happening in a really complex organism,” said Nathan Donley, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy organization.</p>
  2133.  
  2134.  
  2135.  
  2136. <p>Asked about the criticism, an EPA spokesperson wrote in an email to ProPublica that the agency “does not believe there was a double standard applied.”</p>
  2137. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/epa-proposal-could-multiply-acephate-in-tomatoes-and-celery/">EPA Proposal Could Multiply Acephate In Tomatoes and Celery</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2138. ]]></content:encoded>
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  2147. <item>
  2148. <title>How We See Gaza</title>
  2149. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-we-see-gaza/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-we-see-gaza</link>
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  2152. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Editorial Staff /  n+1]]></dc:creator>
  2153. <pubDate>Sat, 27 Apr 2024 16:11:02 +0000</pubDate>
  2154. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  2155. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
  2156. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  2157. <category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
  2158. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
  2159. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  2160. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
  2161. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  2162. <category><![CDATA[Wounds of War]]></category>
  2163. <category><![CDATA[gaza]]></category>
  2164. <category><![CDATA[instagram]]></category>
  2165. <category><![CDATA[israel]]></category>
  2166. <category><![CDATA[October 7th]]></category>
  2167. <category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
  2168. <category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>
  2169. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295888</guid>
  2170.  
  2171. <description><![CDATA[<p>Does a single photo or video of violence carry the Vietnam-era power to shock, or has scrolling produced a “numbing sameness’? </p>
  2172. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-we-see-gaza/">How We See Gaza</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2173. ]]></description>
  2174. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  2175. <p><strong>October 7 marked</strong> the beginning of a new economy of war imagery. At first there was a video of a bulldozer plowing through the border fence between Israel and Gaza—an astonishing image, captured in a familiar way. Then things turned horribly surreal. The events of that day were beamed to the world in real time via body-cam, dashcam, cell phone, drone. A Hamas fighter wearing a GoPro stalked the highway with his automatic rifle jutting up from the bottom of the frame, first-person-shooter style. A dashboard camera showed a car zooming forward as a bullet pierced its windshield and the car began to drift, veering left, until it crashed into the rear end of a parked Toyota; you knew exactly when the person behind the wheel could no longer drive, was probably dead. A drone floated with cinematic calm over the site of the Supernova music festival, where haphazardly parked and burned-out vehicles stood in for the 364 people killed, not pictured — nearly a third of the estimated 1,163 killed that day. A security camera at a kibbutz showed a man running down the sidewalk and suddenly dropping to the ground from being shot in the head. Dozens of images like this were immediately visible, including livestreamed videos of victims bleeding out on their own Facebook pages, posted by the men who first hijacked their accounts and then shot them on camera. In the weeks that followed they inspired a second order of images: hostage posters, government ads, infographic tiles, and AI-illustrated memes participating in the battle for the sympathy of the West.</p>
  2176.  
  2177.  
  2178.  
  2179. <p>Then came the bombardment, and the people of Gaza showed the world what the mainstream media could not: wounded civilians, leveled buildings, long lines of dead bodies wrapped in white sheets, bombed-out universities, bombed-out mosques, toddlers trembling in shock and covered in the gray, ashy dust of debris. Stray cats circling corpses, thousands of people taking shelter in hospitals and schools, or walking with all their belongings down “humanitarian corridors” to “safe zones,” which would later be bombed, too. On Instagram, journalists and doctors gave updates to the front-facing camera in English: They are still bombing, the sound of the drone overhead is constant, we cannot sleep, my neighbor’s house was destroyed, we don’t have power, we don’t have food, we don’t have anesthesia, the internet went down but now it’s back up, there’s nowhere to go, I am so traumatized, we are starving, this man is eating grass, there is no bread, please help us, don’t stop posting, please keep posting. A lawyer presenting South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice called it “the first genocide in history where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time in the desperate, so far vain hope that the world might do something.”</p>
  2180.  
  2181.  
  2182.  
  2183. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The events of that day were beamed to the world in real time via body-cam, dashcam, cell phone, drone.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2184.  
  2185.  
  2186.  
  2187. <p>The bombardment has not stopped, and so the images have not stopped. American writers have tried to make sense of the pictures coming out of Gaza by describing what it feels like to look at them. In the&nbsp;<em>New York Times</em>, Amanda Hess named the emotional whiplash of encountering pictures of dead children amid friends’ baby photos and ads targeted at moms. In the&nbsp;<em>New Yorker</em>, Jay Caspian Kang surmised that the war’s lasting legacy would not be any geopolitical outcome but “the images of innocents we’ve seen, including children, killed in almost every imaginable way.” Also in the&nbsp;<em>Times</em>, Lydia Polgreen meditated on a particular image of six Palestinian children killed in an Israeli air strike. All three writers describe being overwhelmed by the volume and frequency of the images. “Social media bludgeons us with a flood of brutal images” (Polgreen); “We encounter them every time we pick up our phones, whether we are opening Twitter to look for reactions to a touchdown or scrolling through Instagram to see our friends’ children” (Kang); they “arrive stacked in my feed every day” (Hess). All three quote Susan Sontag.</p>
  2188.  
  2189.  
  2190.  
  2191. <p>This focus is to be expected. America’s foreign wars usually come to its citizens through images. The character of those images changes with the times: their composition, content, and mode of distribution are shaped by the technology available to the photographer, and with each shift in technology comes an attendant discourse about efficacy and ethics. Was it wrong to take this photo? Was it wrong to publish it? Who is allowed to take it? What does it mean to publish it here? What are we asking of people when we present them with images of human suffering? What do we expect war footage to do? If it cannot do it, if it doesn’t “work,” what is the point of looking? As the Palestinian American writer Sarah Aziza asks, “What does all this looking do?”</p>
  2192.  
  2193.  
  2194.  
  2195. <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>*&nbsp;&nbsp; *&nbsp;&nbsp; *</strong></p>
  2196.  
  2197.  
  2198.  
  2199. <p>It can be difficult for those inundated by Gaza images on social media to remember that wide swaths of the US population have never seen them, and likely never will. On Instagram, view counts on videos from Gaza regularly number in the millions, but those views are mostly elective. People have either sought out the video or cued the app’s algorithm to serve it up by engaging with similar images. Especially graphic pictures and videos are shielded by a blurry scrim overlaid with a content warning — “This photo contains sensitive content which some people may find offensive or disturbing” or “This photo may contain graphic or violent content” — which can only be lifted by tapping “See Photo” or “See Video.” The mainstream media, by and large, does not show graphic images of Palestinian suffering, if they show images of Palestinian suffering at all. On January 7, 2024, Sarah Schulman wrote on X:</p>
  2200.  
  2201.  
  2202.  
  2203. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
  2204. <p>As a child in the 1960s, every month <em>Life </em>magazine would arrive in our household, and I would see photographs of murdered Vietnamese, burned civilians, screaming children, overwhelmed chaos, piles of bodies slaughtered by Americans .<sup data-fn="70f49fa4-b401-4567-801c-312b7fe45cce" class="fn"><a href="#70f49fa4-b401-4567-801c-312b7fe45cce" id="70f49fa4-b401-4567-801c-312b7fe45cce-link" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">1</a></sup> These images return to me daily, now, as I go to Al Jazeera and twitter and find screaming burning Palestinians, starving children in Gaza, parents caressing their children’s corpses, targeted journalists, and poets like Refaat Alareer, purposefully destroyed. And it does not escape me that when it comes to Palestine, these images are not in our contemporary versions of <em>Life</em> magazine. That American journalists were fired for merely signing letters of protest against these war crimes, not even for showing them. And that, as of this writing, over 100 Palestinian and Lebanese journalists were targeted and murdered by Israeli forces, often with their entire families.</p>
  2205. </blockquote>
  2206.  
  2207.  
  2208.  
  2209. <p>The implication here is not that mainstream circulation of images from Gaza would translate into an immediate ceasefire and termination of aid to Israel; Schulman is well aware that images do not necessarily incite antiwar action, and that antiwar action does not trigger immediate change. (“The Terror of War,” Nick Ut’s 1972 photo of 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running naked down the street after a napalm attack, turned the tide of American public sentiment against the Vietnam War, but did not end it.) What she is implying is that <em>not</em> showing them is guaranteed to keep the horror out of view, where it can be more easily ignored or denied. For all the reasons images of Gaza are not appearing in our contemporary versions of <em>Life </em>magazine — because they’re too graphic; because Israel is targeting and killing photojournalists; because Israel has denied foreign journalists access to Gaza, with the exception of a few IDF-guided tours; because a contemporary version of <em>Life </em>magazine doesn’t exist — the consequences are fatal for thousands of Palestinians. Social media may feel ubiquitous, but it is no substitute for the better-resourced newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters that are our prestige media institutions, which for all their restraints will still determine the historical record. The old debate over whether images of war should be published in mainstream media is not yet obsolete.</p>
  2210.  
  2211.  
  2212.  
  2213. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>&#8220;These images return to me daily, now, as I go to Al Jazeera and twitter and find screaming burning Palestinians, starving children in Gaza, parents caressing their children’s corpses, targeted journalists, and poets like Refaat Alareer, purposefully destroyed.&#8221;</p></blockquote></figure>
  2214.  
  2215.  
  2216.  
  2217. <p>The contours of this debate can be read between the lines of Polgreen’s column for the&nbsp;<em>Times</em>. She begins by describing a photo: “Six small children lie in a row, their heads poking out from the white sheet that is casually lying across their little chests.” The children are Palestinian, and all, she suspects, are under 10. They are also all dead. “This photograph has not been published by a mainstream news organization, so far as I can tell,” Polgreen writes. She ends the next paragraph with this statement: “Given my experience in war zones, it is a rare thing for a violent image to stop me in my tracks. But I believe that this is an image that demands to be seen.”</p>
  2218.  
  2219.  
  2220.  
  2221. <p>What happens between and around these three sentences is interesting. “Because of its graphic nature,” Polgreen writes, out of voice, the&nbsp;<em>Times&nbsp;</em>has “decided not to publish [the photo] in full; this column is accompanied by a cropped version of the image.” She then seems to equivocate on her main point. Of course, she writes, the image can already be seen on social media. And the norm to rarely show graphic images of dead or wounded children is justified. The column’s title is not the sentence Polgreen writes (“this is an image that demands to be seen”) but the more abstract “This Photograph Demands an Answer.”</p>
  2222.  
  2223.  
  2224.  
  2225. <p>But an answer to what? It’s tempting, as editors, to read these contradictions as a scar on the text, an attempt to suture a rift between a writer’s intention and editorial policy. In the cropped version of the image, the viewer sees only four children, and only the lower halves of their faces, as the border cuts off at their noses; a white sheet takes up 80 percent of the frame. Online, the op-ed links out to the full picture on Getty Images, and the difference is small but significant. What you cannot see in the&nbsp;<em>Times</em>&nbsp;version, besides the two children at the margins who can’t be more than 4 or 5 years old, is that the skull of the little girl in the pink shirt has been crushed, cratering her forehead and distorting the shape of her face. (Or as Polgreen puts it, she “appears to be missing a chunk of skull.”) Until you see her face, the other children could be mistaken for sleeping. It is only this face that immediately conveys that all six of them are dead. Without her, it’s not the same picture.</p>
  2226.  
  2227.  
  2228.  
  2229. <p>Polgreen’s editor, Kathleen Kingsbury, explained her decision not to include the full image in a newsletter to <em>Times</em> readers, citing, among other things, the inability to contact the children’s parents for consent.<sup data-fn="8ea08388-b17b-490f-aec9-e97db24adf3f" class="fn"><a href="#8ea08388-b17b-490f-aec9-e97db24adf3f" id="8ea08388-b17b-490f-aec9-e97db24adf3f-link" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">2</a></sup> But again, it is hard not to suspect another rationale at work, a cost-benefit calculation on behalf of <em>Times</em> management and ownership. Why assume responsibility for such vivid evidence of Israel’s crimes when readers can find the same image elsewhere? Surely you can still be the paper of record with half measures like external links and cropping, which let you show and not show at the same time? Why suffer the blowback from disturbed subscribers or the relentless harassment of Zionist propaganda groups like the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, or CAMERA, who exist solely to lobby for “corrections” to media coverage unflattering to Israel?<sup data-fn="875c51ab-1b08-4635-a925-bcce73e926f9" class="fn"><a href="#875c51ab-1b08-4635-a925-bcce73e926f9" id="875c51ab-1b08-4635-a925-bcce73e926f9-link" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">3</a></sup> It’s a form of visual circumlocution commensurate to the <em>Times</em>’s headlines on Israel–Palestine, bludgeoned into passive voice by internal and external pressures.</p>
  2230.  
  2231.  
  2232.  
  2233. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The cognitive dissonance produced by this juxtaposition is by now familiar, but it is intensified by social media’s inner mechanisms, which tailor the cognitive dissonance to you.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2234.  
  2235.  
  2236.  
  2237. <p>No matter where you find them, images of war and death appear beside advertisements. This has long been the case. Thirty- and sixty-second ad spots appeared on TV broadcasts of the Gulf War. <em>Life</em> magazine printed ads peddling bourgeois comforts beside images of the Vietnam War, a juxtaposition made famous by Martha Rosler’s collage series <em>House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home</em> (c. 1967–72). The cognitive dissonance produced by this juxtaposition is by now familiar, but it is intensified by social media’s inner mechanisms, which tailor the cognitive dissonance to you. When both the content and the advertisements are algorithmically determined to be maximally compelling, maximally personal, the pull between worlds is more pointed. Which reality do the privileged and distant wish to live in today, the one where a man throws a severed foot onto a pile of gathered remains, or the one that offers 20 percent off leggings? Odds will favor the leggings. Unfiltered images of Gaza are most prevalent on the most addictive apps — TikTok, Instagram, X — which people check compulsively in their downtime, and where fantasy beckons. Every ad, every image of business as usual, is a lure to return to the lifestyle universe the app has constellated around you. At the same time, every decision to “engage” with atrocity footage — every like, link, share, or follow — is an invitation to the algorithm to further disrupt the dream. To welcome such unvarnished horror into your oasis of mindless diversion, narcissism, and shopping is, for many, to get more than you bargained for. It only takes a sliver of exposure to feel the incessant character of the onslaught: nowhere is safe, it never stops. There will be death every time you pull out your phone until death itself gets shadowbanned.</p>
  2238.  
  2239.  
  2240.  
  2241. <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>*   *   *</strong></p>
  2242.  
  2243.  
  2244.  
  2245. <p>After months of watching, one wonders whether a single image has the same power to shock as it did decades ago. Whether any one photo or video will ever stand in for the annihilation of Gaza the way “The Terror of War” did for Vietnam. Videos and photos from Gaza have a way of melting together in a stream of similar images — what Kang called the “numbing sameness” of cell phone videos, whose power instead is in their cumulative effect. It doesn’t help that many of these images also literally disappear: videos captured on Instagram Stories that become “unavailable” after twenty-four hours; pictures removed from Twitch or YouTube or X because they violate terms of service; images served up on your For You page from accounts you don’t follow that you’re unable to find again when you try to look for them, because what would you search, “Father clawing at rubble with bare hands to find children trapped underneath”? There are literally thousands of such fathers, and dozens of videos depicting them.</p>
  2246.  
  2247.  
  2248.  
  2249. <p>But these images are no less indelible for their transience, no less representative for their numerousness. They still have the power to haunt. People testify to the images they’ve seen online: “I just saw a child whose legs were shredded into ropes of gore, hanging from the rubble of a bombed building,” a woman posted on X the night of the Super Bowl, as Israel began to drop bombs on the “safe zone” of Rafah where 1.5 million displaced Palestinians were taking shelter. “Saw a child gathering strips of human flesh and organs off the sidewalk and depositing them into a plastic bag in Motaz [Azaiza]’s [Instagram] stories,” another woman posted on X. “What are we even arguing about?”</p>
  2250.  
  2251.  
  2252.  
  2253. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Videos and photos from Gaza have a way of melting together in a stream of similar images — what Kang called the “numbing sameness” of cell phone videos, whose power instead is in their cumulative effect.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2254.  
  2255.  
  2256.  
  2257. <p>We, too, find ourselves talking about the images we can’t forget. The pictures of premature infants at al-Shifa hospital wrapped in foil and blankets after their incubators lost power during the siege. The babies at al-Nasr hospital whose bodies were found decomposing on hospital beds after a forced evacuation. The emaciated figure and wide eyes of Yazan al-Kafarna, a Palestinian child with cerebral palsy who died of hunger and malnutrition in Rafah. And just as haunting, the pictures of life in Gaza before October 7 that capture just how much has been lost: stretches of highway running along the beach at sunset, beautiful buildings lit up at night, couples dancing, libraries, cafés, frescoes, kitchen interiors, people smiling in restaurants, flowers, trees. “The memories brought up on your smartphone return you for a moment to your past life, to its atmosphere of ease and the embrace of friends,” writes Sarah Aziza’s cousin Nabil S. in a letter from Gaza, published in&nbsp;<em>Mizna</em>, describing what it’s like to look at photos from before the bombardment. “It is as if this forgotten life now presses itself upon us against our will — for these pictures are all that remain of our family and loved ones. Only photos, for us to weep and lament over, for we locked the doors tightly when we left our homes. We left with the keys in our hands.”</p>
  2258.  
  2259.  
  2260.  
  2261. <p>We are not used to this — not to the gruesomeness, the ceaselessness, the direct address. Thirteen-year-old Nadin Abdullatif asks the camera in English, “Does no one care about the two million people here in Gaza? Does no one care about us? I don’t know. What is happening here? What has happened to the world? I’m suffering, and every other child is suffering. So please, notice us!” Speaking with a quivering voice over footage of people fleeing al-Shifa, Yara Eid begs, “Guys, please. Let’s stop this now. Like talk about it, share. I don’t know. Call — anyone. Try to do something. I never imagined this would happen, this is another Nakba.” Motaz Azaiza posts on X and Instagram, “You are all useless. Without shame watching us get killed one by one. Will wait my turn to be killed by Israel. And believe me you are gonna do nothing.” People in the comments say don’t give up, we need you, the world sees you, we are trying to speak up, but it’s true, we are useless, we’re ashamed of ourselves, God forgive us, we’ve failed you. This is what images on social media can do — activate an intense, genuine parasocial attachment, the same kind of attachment we feel toward strangers online who invite us to follow their motherhood journeys, their sobriety journeys, their cancer journeys. Nobody expected to follow someone’s genocide journey, their famine journey. Yet here we are.<sup data-fn="95f478ec-0453-4726-a22a-592bf8d609bb" class="fn"><a href="#95f478ec-0453-4726-a22a-592bf8d609bb" id="95f478ec-0453-4726-a22a-592bf8d609bb-link" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">4</a></sup></p>
  2262.  
  2263.  
  2264.  
  2265. <p>Motaz, Nadin, Wael al-Dahdouh, Hind Khoudary, Bisan Owda, Plestia Alaqad — we feel like we know these people, posting from Gaza or about Gaza if they managed to get out. It is, in large part, our familiarity with the photographers and videographers that places their output in a different category than the 20th-century war images on which our inherited discourse is based. Even if skillful, these are not works of art; they are distress signals. There is no hand-wringing about the politics of representation. The victims are representing themselves.</p>
  2266.  
  2267.  
  2268.  
  2269. <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>*   *   *</strong></p>
  2270.  
  2271.  
  2272.  
  2273. <p>Even as Israeli officials state their genocidal intent on the record, Israeli civilians have accused Gazans of faking the genocide. We have seen “comedy” videos by twentysomethings featuring women in hijabs sobbing in front of a green screen. We have read conspiracy tweets about “Pallywood” that purport to show how images of atrocity have been faked — a severely injured man in a hospital bed who is healed the next day, corpses draped in sheets who miraculously rise from the dead — that continue to circulate long after they are debunked. (The first video, investigated by the AP, France 24, and other outlets, is composed of two different videos, stitched together, of two different men; the second is misappropriated behind-the-scenes footage of a short film made in Lebanon about life in Gaza.)</p>
  2274.  
  2275.  
  2276.  
  2277. <p>Early on in Israel’s incursion, journalists worried that generative AI and influence technology would proliferate on Elon Musk’s guardrail-free version of Twitter, creating a perfect storm of disinformation. One or two episodes seemed to confirm their fears: the deepfake of a Palestinian man leading five children through a bombed-out landscape; the Adobe Stock controversy, in which a number of small news outlets used AI-generated imagery from Adobe’s stock image service without identifying them as fakes. But on the whole, fake images have played a far, far smaller role than expected. There are simply too many real ones saturating the visual field. Doctored images and disinformation do circulate — the AP keeps a running list of debunked claims that favor both Zionist and anti-Zionist narratives — but when it comes to images of suffering from Gaza, the number of distorted or out-of-context images is negligible.<sup data-fn="6c2ecd05-9a76-4347-a688-5acdd07a7c0f" class="fn"><a href="#6c2ecd05-9a76-4347-a688-5acdd07a7c0f" id="6c2ecd05-9a76-4347-a688-5acdd07a7c0f-link" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">5</a></sup></p>
  2278.  
  2279.  
  2280.  
  2281. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Even as Israeli officials state their genocidal intent on the record, Israeli civilians have accused Gazans of faking the genocide.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2282.  
  2283.  
  2284.  
  2285. <p>Israel’s social media activity since October 7 has been a crash course in&nbsp;<em>hasbara</em>, Israel’s word for propaganda, or diplomacy, directed at foreign audiences. Literally defined as “explaining” in Hebrew (there is a different word for propaganda), hasbara describes a range of efforts to rationalize Israel’s actions to the world. As Noam Sheizaf wrote in&nbsp;<em>+972</em>&nbsp;magazine in 2011, “Hasbara targets political elites, opinion makers, and the public simultaneously; it includes traditional advocacy efforts as well as more general appeals made through mass media, and it is carried out by government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, lobbying groups, private citizens, students, journalists, and bloggers. The Israeli government encourages all citizens to actively engage in Hasbara.”</p>
  2286.  
  2287.  
  2288.  
  2289. <p>A meaningful portion of Israel’s hasbara efforts since October 7 has involved the creation and dissemination of visual material, a chaotic profusion of badly executed videos and graphics that offer a disturbingly two-dimensional counter-presence to the images coming out of Gaza. Pedantic ads with middling to high production values. Bad AI meme art, the kind your most fringe aunt might post to Facebook, with uncanny-valley details, like an irrational profusion of arms at a made-up military rally, or faces in picture frames hanging on a bullet-ridden wall that melt into nonsense shapes. Racist TikToks of young Israelis mocking Palestinian women with their front teeth blacked out. Ads that use the hectoring calling-in voice of Instagram identity politics, or reference lowest-common-denominator millennial pop culture like Harry Potter. (An October 25 post on X by @Israel shows an image of Lord Voldemort clutching a cell phone with two hands and sobbing at the screen.&nbsp;HAMAS REDEFINES EVIL, it says.&nbsp;WATCH THE EVIDENCE: HAMAS-MASSACRE.COM. This is a&nbsp;<em>government image</em>.) All this material is stupid. Some of it is openly genocidal, like the video of four young Israeli girls recording a song called “The Friendship Song,” posted by the national public broadcaster Kan. Their cherubic voices sing,</p>
  2290.  
  2291.  
  2292.  
  2293. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
  2294. <p>Autumn night falls over the beach of Gaza</p>
  2295.  
  2296.  
  2297.  
  2298. <p>Planes are bombing, destruction, destruction</p>
  2299.  
  2300.  
  2301.  
  2302. <p>Look the IDF is crossing the line</p>
  2303.  
  2304.  
  2305.  
  2306. <p>to annihilate the swastika-bearers</p>
  2307.  
  2308.  
  2309.  
  2310. <p>In another year there will be nothing there</p>
  2311.  
  2312.  
  2313.  
  2314. <p>And we will safely return to our homes</p>
  2315.  
  2316.  
  2317.  
  2318. <p>Within a year we will annihilate everyone</p>
  2319.  
  2320.  
  2321.  
  2322. <p>And then we will return to plow our fields</p>
  2323. </blockquote>
  2324.  
  2325.  
  2326.  
  2327. <p>One video, produced by the Israeli National Public Diplomacy Directorate (@NationalHasbara) and aired on Hulu, used AI to construct a faux tourist ad for Gaza, showing how friendly and beautiful it would be for Western tourists — beaches, restaurants! — if not for Hamas. Another Hulu ad produced by the Directorate, aired to American audiences over the holidays, showed Santa squinting over a letter from a little boy, featuring a drawing of stick-figure fighters brandishing weapons over stick-figure children and stick-figure corpses with <em>X</em>s for eyes. “Dear Santa,” the letter reads as music swells. “I’m writing to you for the first time. On October 7, some bad people came into our house. They hurt my mommy and my little sister, took my daddy away, and are still holding him. I’m all alone. I wish you could help bring my daddy back home.” Santa removes his glasses and begins to sob into his white-gloved hand. The video was posted to the official @Israel TikTok account on Christmas Eve. “This is a letter no child should have to write to Santa,” the caption reads, absurdly — an insult to the people whose loved ones were murdered or taken hostage. There is no call to action here, just a reminder that hostages are still being held by Hamas. BRING THEM HOME, demands the ad, as if it wasn’t coming from the very entity — the only entity! — capable of negotiating the hostages’ return.</p>
  2328.  
  2329.  
  2330.  
  2331. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Israel’s social media activity since October 7 has been a crash course in <em>hasbara</em>, Israel’s word for propaganda, or diplomacy, directed at foreign audiences.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2332.  
  2333.  
  2334.  
  2335. <p>There is something uniquely disturbing about this type of cultural production, which feels like it should be satire but is not. It reveals a stunning disregard for life — a perverse, almost gleeful nihilism. One would like to think that pop culture could not so comfortably house calls for genocide, or that respect for human dignity would restrain a person from glibly expressing murderous intent through forms whose content is supposed to be touching, inspiring, or at the very least benign. Kids should not be singing about annihilation on YouTube. Characters from YA fantasy novels should not be deployed in campaigns for genocide. And yet they are, without so much as a shred of shame.</p>
  2336.  
  2337.  
  2338.  
  2339. <p>What environment has produced the hasbarists behind these images, the creative-class ghouls who manufacture consent in millennial pink? Do they really think this material is persuasive? As the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy argued in&nbsp;<em>Haaretz</em>&nbsp;in 2015, “Israeli Propaganda Isn’t Fooling Anyone — Except Israelis”:</p>
  2340.  
  2341.  
  2342.  
  2343. <blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
  2344. <p>The policy of denial and disconnection from reality is rising to a dangerous level, and the illness is getting worse. . . . Israel seems to think that what worked well in its society and succeeded in almost totally wiping out all consciousness and awareness, will work just as well in the rest of the world. That the brainwashing campaign that was such a dazzling success here will be just as effective abroad — it’s all just a matter of “hasbara,” the Israeli euphemism for propaganda — and of budgets, of course. . . . There are some things, said the late ambassador Yohanan Meroz, that are not “hasbarable.” One of them is Israel’s actions. No explainer or propagandist can explain the perpetuation of the occupation. It just won’t work.</p>
  2345. </blockquote>
  2346.  
  2347.  
  2348.  
  2349. <p>The prevailing belief that everything <em>is </em>hasbarable accounts for the decline in hasbara’s quality after October 7, which even Israel seems to be aware of.<sup data-fn="9d5ff46d-f108-4acd-a99d-be5b12dbe33c" class="fn"><a href="#9d5ff46d-f108-4acd-a99d-be5b12dbe33c" id="9d5ff46d-f108-4acd-a99d-be5b12dbe33c-link" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">6</a></sup> Some of the visual hasbara posted to @Israel on X is corny but evil, like the picture of the Israeli soldier standing in front of a tank with a rainbow flag. Some of it beggars belief, like the photos of a copy of <em>Mein Kampf </em>ostensibly found in “a child’s room of a home in Gaza used by Hamas as a terrorism hub,” with pages highlighted and marked with Post-it notes and a full-color illustration of Hitler brooding on the cover. Some of it is sloppy, like the video clip, since deleted, that claimed to show “23,000 tons of tents and shelter equipment” provided to Gaza but actually depicted tents in Moldova provided to Ukrainian refugees in 2022; or the footage of IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari in the basement of al-Rantisi children’s hospital where he says hostages were held by Hamas. The lights are off; a flashlight behind the camera illuminates his figure in fatigues, helmet, vest; a rifle is slung around his neck. He walks to the wall, points to a piece of paper taped above a desk, and says: “In this room there is a list. This list, in Arabic, says, ‘We are in an operation. The operation against Israel. Started the seventh of October.’ This is a guardian list, where every terrorist writes his name, guarding the people that were here.” The camera zooms in on what is not a list but a calendar: the hostage keepers’ names are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But it doesn’t matter. The video is for an audience that cannot read Arabic and sees what it wants to see.</p>
  2350.  
  2351.  
  2352.  
  2353. <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>*   *   *</strong></p>
  2354.  
  2355.  
  2356.  
  2357. <p>What does Israel want to see? Patriotism, hostage updates, reports of success from the front — not the genocide in Gaza. Since the ground invasion began on October 27, national broadcasters have ceded their journalistic duties in favor of boosting morale, ignoring the details of Palestinian casualties. Remarks from Hagari, the IDF spokesman, are received uncritically. The thousands of Palestinian children killed by the bombing and the siege go unmentioned. According to an anonymous reporter for a leading news channel, audiences do not want to see images of Gaza, and so, in “surrender to the public mood,” the channel does not show them. “I’m conscious of the role we have in maintaining national morale,” the reporter lamented to <em>Haaretz</em>. “I’m not saying that we need to show [things as] 50-50, but can’t at least 20 percent of the coverage be about [casualties in Gaza]? Ten percent? Even that’s not happening.”</p>
  2358.  
  2359.  
  2360.  
  2361. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Since the ground invasion began on October 27, national broadcasters have ceded their journalistic duties in favor of boosting morale, ignoring the details of Palestinian casualties.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2362.  
  2363.  
  2364.  
  2365. <p>What Israel wants to see instead is the victory image, a snapshot of military triumph that looms large in the country’s collective consciousness. After Israel’s success in the Six-Day War in 1967, hundreds of photo books and special edition newspapers known as victory albums were printed to commemorate the war, becoming instant best sellers that buoyed both national morale and the publishing industry. Israel had sent dozens of photographers and journalists to the fronts, and victory albums with names like&nbsp;<em>The Epic of Victory</em>,&nbsp;<em>We Were as Dreamers</em>, and&nbsp;<em>Six Days&nbsp;</em>became popular gifts for birthdays and bar mitzvahs. For a generation, victory albums were ubiquitous in Israeli households. The most iconic images were of the young paratroopers arriving at the Wailing Wall; Rabbi Shlomo Goren blowing the shofar surrounded by soldiers; Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dayan, and Uzi Narkiss entering the Old City of Jerusalem; and Yossi Ben Hanan taking a dip with his AK-47 in the Suez Canal, a full-color version of which made the cover of&nbsp;<em>Life</em>. But there were also more ordinary images of nameless figures: surrendering Egyptians walking with their hands over their heads and IDF soldiers posing with images of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. (One shows a soldier putting a cigarette in Nasser’s mouth, a callback to the Egyptian president’s alleged comment that his army “would be marching into Tel Aviv before he could even finish smoking a cigarette,” as Daniel Bertrand Monk writes in an article about the pictorial history of the Six-Day War.) Dayan, a hero of many of the albums, warned of their intoxicating effect: “It is time we ceased living on the albums and memories of the great victory we had,” he said in 1968, lest it breed military overconfidence. But while the album atmosphere did dissipate, the ideal of the victory image did not.</p>
  2366.  
  2367.  
  2368.  
  2369. <p>Israel would attempt to create victory images in subsequent wars, for the most part without success.<sup data-fn="cf605285-08eb-4f69-8c36-29e55d978165" class="fn"><a href="#cf605285-08eb-4f69-8c36-29e55d978165" id="cf605285-08eb-4f69-8c36-29e55d978165-link" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">7</a></sup> Since then, the Israeli appetite for the victory image has become a cliché, periodically resurfacing in media commentary. “Israel Should Know by Now: The Perfect Victory Image Doesn’t Exist” reads one op-ed headline in <em>Haaretz.</em> “Israel’s Real Image of Victory Is Moderation on Both Sides of the Green Line” reads another. “IDF isn’t seeking ‘victory pictures’; it’s seeking victory, however long that takes” reads another in the <em>Times of Israel</em>.</p>
  2370.  
  2371.  
  2372.  
  2373. <p>IDF soldiers are officially banned from using cell phones in combat zones and from posting photos of themselves in uniform. That hasn’t stopped them from doing either, or discouraged their attempts to capture — or fabricate — victory images themselves. When photos and videos of Israeli soldiers making mass arrests in Beit Lahia first circulated in early December, the Israeli media was quick to claim them as victory images, with Hagari again spinning the narrative at a press conference. “We’ve seen images of many captives, Hamas terrorists, that the IDF arrested during the ground maneuvering,” he said. Another government spokesperson told CNN that the men were all “suspected terrorists” — dozens of them, stripped to their underwear with their hands tied behind their backs, some blindfolded, forced to sit in the street or kneel in the dirt, or sit packed into the bed of a truck. But Palestinians online were quick to identify the detainees as civilians, among them family members, friends, and at least one journalist.</p>
  2374.  
  2375.  
  2376.  
  2377. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>What Israel wants to see instead is the victory image, a snapshot of military triumph that looms large in the country’s collective consciousness.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2378.  
  2379.  
  2380.  
  2381. <p>In a segment on Al Jazeera English, a reporter showed two video clips obtained from a similar scene. In the first clip, a Palestinian man stripped down to his sandals and boxer briefs holds a rifle above his head in a posture of surrender. Slowly, he walks across the rubble-strewn street, past a long line of likewise stripped men, and lays the gun down in front of an Israeli tank. The next clip is nearly identical, only the rifle is in the man’s opposite hand. The multiple videos suggest multiple takes — an attempt to stage a Hamas surrender. “Experts have questioned why Israeli soldiers would strip a captive and&nbsp;<em>then&nbsp;</em>order him to hand over his weapon,” the Al Jazeera reporter comments.</p>
  2382.  
  2383.  
  2384.  
  2385. <p>Unlike this attempt at classic stagecraft that soldiers leaked to the press, most of the visual material produced by IDF soldiers in Gaza is made for social media, for fun. Call it victory content — casual, quotidian, composed in a TikTok vernacular with one video creating a template that others imitate endlessly. There is the “comedic” real estate tour video, in which a soldier guides another through a destroyed and evacuated Palestinian home and makes comments about how the kitchen needs some work. The “door” video, in which the camera tightly frames a hand knocking on a door — then zooms out to show the door is the only part of the building standing. And then there is the bomb dedication video. “I dedicate this explosion to my daughter, princess Ella, for her birthday,” one soldier says to the camera. “Today, she turns 2. I miss you.” He counts down from ten in Hebrew and a bomb detonates in the distance. There’s a moment where the cell phone camera doesn’t know where to look; it pans just in time to catch a cloud of smoke rising from an edifice at the end of the block.</p>
  2386.  
  2387.  
  2388.  
  2389. <p>One soldier even made a wedding invitation video with a bomb. “Thursday, the twenty-ninth of February, there will be an explosion!” he says to the camera, standing inside what appears to be a partly demolished apartment. Someone off-screen counts down from ten while the soldier beside him with an iPhone mounted to his helmet holds a reel of cord. The soldier pulls a pin, something in his hands sparks, and outside there is a blast, blowing the curtain behind him aside. The men around him cheer, raise drinks in the air, put their arms around one another and jump, smile, wave, clap, sing: “Tonight, tonight, tonight, a big celebration! Tonight, tonight, tonight, a big celebration!” Hebrew text over the video says SAVE THE DATE 29.02.2024<em>.</em> It is horrifying to see a bourgeois ritual not merely taking place amid a genocidal campaign but contributing to it thoughtlessly, as if a bomb were a popped champagne cork. You can tell the soldiers filming thought they were being creative. A Pinterest trend from hell.</p>
  2390.  
  2391.  
  2392.  
  2393. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Call it victory content — casual, quotidian, composed in a TikTok vernacular with one video creating a template that others imitate endlessly.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2394.  
  2395.  
  2396.  
  2397. <p>As of early March, most of the IDF victory content that circulates broadly in the West does not include Palestinians. Instead soldiers pose with their belongings. A soldier curled up in the Pack ’n Play of a child who may well now be dead, cuddling a Tweety Bird plush toy. A soldier holding up a graduation stole next to a demolished house. A soldier sitting on the floor with his rifle, looking up at looted underwear and camisoles pinned to the wall behind him — his dating profile picture. Five smiling soldiers leaning on the looted canes of the elderly and disabled. A soldier smiling as he dangles a thin silver chain from his fingers. “Noa, look, your boyfriend brought you a new necklace from Gaza,” says the man recording the video. “Made in Gaza.”</p>
  2398.  
  2399.  
  2400.  
  2401. <p>The smiles are the scariest part. They call to mind the grins of Charles Graner, Lynndie England, and Sabrina Harman posing with their thumbs up next to the tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib. The only thing scarier than the cheerful expressions of latent aggression are the plain demonstrations of malice: a soldier shooting at the interior wall of an apartment whose walls have been spray-painted with the words LET YOUR VILLAGE BURN. Soldiers lighting food aid on fire. Soldiers destroying a warehouse where aid was stored. A soldier standing beside the exterior wall of a house that is spray-painted with red graffiti: INSTEAD OF ERASING GRAFFITI, LET’S ERASE GAZA.</p>
  2402.  
  2403.  
  2404.  
  2405. <p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>*   *   *</strong></p>
  2406.  
  2407.  
  2408.  
  2409. <p>Decades after its creation as a discrete territory under Israeli rule, the Gaza Strip “became the biggest militarized open photography studio in the world,” wrote the theorist and filmmaker Ariella Aïsha Azoulay in the <em>Boston Review </em>last December — a place where “Palestinians could be turned at any moment into subjects of what are commonly known as ‘human rights photographs.’” During the First Intifada, she continues, “Gaza became a true photographic mine, from which hundreds of thousands of photos of Palestinians were extracted, published, discussed, circulated, purchased, sold, auctioned, and held in press archives, museum collections, NGO archives, and so on.” In these images, Palestinians were routinely framed as disposable “so that their killing [was] not a disruption but rather a validation of their disposability.”</p>
  2410.  
  2411.  
  2412.  
  2413. <p>The Palestinians documenting the current genocide have put an end to this era of the humanitarian photograph. Just as IDF soldiers’ self-incriminating victory content has displaced the victory image, civilian images from Gaza since October 7 have displaced the symbolic regime that takes the erasure of Palestine and its people for granted. It is not inevitable. It can and will be resisted.</p>
  2414.  
  2415.  
  2416.  
  2417. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The Palestinians documenting the current genocide have put an end to this era of the humanitarian photograph.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2418.  
  2419.  
  2420.  
  2421. <p>One way to read the left strategy of anti-Zionist direct action in the United States is as a riposte to the hasbarists’ emphasis on the visual, employing tactics that translate well to the image. New York has seen protests at Grand Central Station and the Statue of Liberty, two of the most photogenic and frequently photographed New York City landmarks, and the interruption of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a New York institution and nationally broadcast event. Culture-jamming materials, like the mock newspaper the&nbsp;<em>New York War Crimes</em>&nbsp;and subway posters in the style of MoMA ads and MTA maps that make the viewer double take, show what actually good imitative design can accomplish. In Washington DC, the active-duty Air Force serviceman Aaron Bushnell’s decision to livestream his self-immolation in front of the Israeli embassy on Twitch guaranteed that images of his protest could not be suppressed.</p>
  2422.  
  2423.  
  2424.  
  2425. <p>“There is no such thing as an image of genocide,” Azoulay writes, “but images in plural, made over time, can be used to refute the terms of the conversation that deny the racialization of a group and its transformation into the object of genocidal violence.” This is precisely what civilian images from Gaza have done: “refut[ed] the terms” of the Israeli self-concept that denies the genocidal violence, past and present, on which it depends. It is impossible, having seen what we’ve seen, to accept Israel’s account of its actions or the terms on which it relays that account. And it is impossible to deny that a genocide is unfolding before our eyes. Israel has taken more than thirty thousand lives in Gaza in five months, and we can’t say we didn’t know, didn’t see. The horrors of this moment will be suppressed and denied in the future, as they’re being suppressed and denied already. These photos and videos are for the record as much as for the present. Today much of Gaza lies in ruins; it is thanks to their images that Gaza’s people will not be erased.</p>
  2426.  
  2427.  
  2428. <ol class="wp-block-footnotes"><li id="70f49fa4-b401-4567-801c-312b7fe45cce">Schulman’s remarks were originally posted in a numbered series to fit X’s character limits. They have been run together here, with the numbers omitted, for ease of reading. <a href="#70f49fa4-b401-4567-801c-312b7fe45cce-link" aria-label="Jump to footnote reference 1" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/21a9.png" alt="↩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />︎</a></li><li id="8ea08388-b17b-490f-aec9-e97db24adf3f">Kingsbury writes, “For me, the tipping point was how clearly the viewer could identify each of these children. This is often one of the factors we use when children are in a photo, and we frequently try to get parents’ consent before publication. We were not able to reach the parents or families of these kids, and given the ongoing violence, they may even be deceased themselves. I could not imagine loved ones discovering that this image had been published in the <em>Times</em> without warning.” <a href="#8ea08388-b17b-490f-aec9-e97db24adf3f-link" aria-label="Jump to footnote reference 2" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/21a9.png" alt="↩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />︎</a></li><li id="875c51ab-1b08-4635-a925-bcce73e926f9">CAMERA, which was founded in 1982 to “respond to the <em>Washington Post</em>’s coverage of Israel’s Lebanon incursion, and to the paper’s general anti-Israel bias,” accused <em>New York Times</em> reporters of being “Hamas stenographers” for using the phrase “Israeli occupation forces” in a December 2023 article describing an Israeli attack on a hospital in northern Gaza. The<em> Times</em> subsequently deleted the word “occupation” from the article. In January 2024, the Intercept noted in a report on the <em>Times</em>’s deference to CAMERA that the<em> Times</em> executive editor Joseph Kahn’s father, Leo Kahn, was a longtime member of CAMERA’s board. <a href="#875c51ab-1b08-4635-a925-bcce73e926f9-link" aria-label="Jump to footnote reference 3" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/21a9.png" alt="↩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />︎</a></li><li id="95f478ec-0453-4726-a22a-592bf8d609bb">We mean this literally. Nisreen Shehada, a dentist and food blogger, invites followers to “Join [her] for a baking day in the tent .” She mixes water and flour by hand as a familiar TikTok sound — a flute cover of a song from the Up soundtrack — plays sweetly in the background. “The bakeries [have been] closed for about three months,” she says in English voice-over. Her tone is gentle, unhurried, and friendly. “Due to the scarcity of electricity and flour we have to make our own bread. Each morning mothers bake fresh bread and the smell is simply captivating.” She shapes the dough, rolls it out, places it on a stove, all using the standard montage techniques of cooking vlogs. “This [stove] used to work with electricity but we found a way to modify it using coal.” The extreme abnormality of her situation is downplayed. <a href="#95f478ec-0453-4726-a22a-592bf8d609bb-link" aria-label="Jump to footnote reference 4" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/21a9.png" alt="↩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />︎</a></li><li id="6c2ecd05-9a76-4347-a688-5acdd07a7c0f">News outlets like CNN and CBS source videos from social media and claim to have verified each one. Human Rights Watch’s Digital Investigations Lab analyzes and confirms the authenticity of images using geolocation and chronolocation. Out-of-context images posted to X are promptly flagged by users with a community note — Elon Musk’s Band-Aid solution to his website’s content moderation problem — though these, too, can be wrong. <a href="#6c2ecd05-9a76-4347-a688-5acdd07a7c0f-link" aria-label="Jump to footnote reference 5" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/21a9.png" alt="↩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />︎</a></li><li id="9d5ff46d-f108-4acd-a99d-be5b12dbe33c">On January 16, Omer Benjakob reported in <em>Haaretz</em> that Israel had purchased a “technological system capable of conducting mass online influence campaigns” in response to what the author’s sources called Israel’s “credibility crisis” and “‘clear loss’ to Hamas on the digital battlefield.” An earlier article by Roxana Saberi reported that the decision to compile and screen previously unseen footage from October 7 to foreign journalists was also based on Israel’s sense that it needed to gain lost ground in the “narrative battle” with Hamas. <a href="#9d5ff46d-f108-4acd-a99d-be5b12dbe33c-link" aria-label="Jump to footnote reference 6" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/21a9.png" alt="↩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />︎</a></li><li id="cf605285-08eb-4f69-8c36-29e55d978165">The former photojournalist and academic Yoav Galai writes that obtaining a victory image “became a stated goal of any Israeli military operation” during the 2006 Lebanon war, and that a specific attempt was made to stage an image of a soldier “waving an Israeli flag” over a house that had been used by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “The image of the Israeli flag waving over that balcony six years later was meant to send a message to Israelis and to Hezbollah that would serve as a ‘victory image,’” Galai writes, “but the result was unimpressive and grainy and the picture was never used for propaganda purposes.” <a href="#cf605285-08eb-4f69-8c36-29e55d978165-link" aria-label="Jump to footnote reference 7" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/21a9.png" alt="↩" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />︎</a></li></ol><p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/how-we-see-gaza/">How We See Gaza</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2429. ]]></content:encoded>
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  2438. <item>
  2439. <title>After a Year of War in Sudan, Public Health Concerns Deepen</title>
  2440. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/after-a-year-of-war-in-sudan-public-health-concerns-deepen/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=after-a-year-of-war-in-sudan-public-health-concerns-deepen</link>
  2441. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/after-a-year-of-war-in-sudan-public-health-concerns-deepen/#respond</comments>
  2443. <dc:creator><![CDATA[PD Staff /  Peoples Dispatch]]></dc:creator>
  2444. <pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2024 15:52:48 +0000</pubDate>
  2445. <category><![CDATA[Activism]]></category>
  2446. <category><![CDATA[Africa]]></category>
  2447. <category><![CDATA[Health & Wellness]]></category>
  2448. <category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
  2449. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  2450. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
  2451. <category><![CDATA[Wounds of War]]></category>
  2452. <category><![CDATA[dengue]]></category>
  2453. <category><![CDATA[doctors without borders]]></category>
  2454. <category><![CDATA[famine]]></category>
  2455. <category><![CDATA[sudan]]></category>
  2456. <category><![CDATA[world health organization]]></category>
  2457. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295881</guid>
  2458.  
  2459. <description><![CDATA[<p>The war-torn country faces the destruction of its health infrastructure, widespread displacement and hunger.</p>
  2460. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/after-a-year-of-war-in-sudan-public-health-concerns-deepen/">After a Year of War in Sudan, Public Health Concerns Deepen</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2461. ]]></description>
  2462. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  2463. <p><strong><a href="https://sudantribune.com/article284729/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Dengue</a> fever has added to the list of concerns</strong> faced by Sudan, more than a year after the beginning of the civil war that has caused one of the world’s largest displacement crises.</p>
  2464.  
  2465.  
  2466.  
  2467. <p>Public health authorities&nbsp;<a href="https://english.news.cn/20240419/583f5679433a4fca976abc9774a96451/c.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;9,000 cases of dengue by April 18, 2024, with more than 60 people killed by the disease. While the Ministry of Health has announced it will take steps to contain the spread of infections, the prospects remain uncertain, considering that most of the health and sanitation infrastructure has been affected by the civil war waged between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).</p>
  2468.  
  2469.  
  2470.  
  2471. <p>According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least&nbsp;<a href="https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-remarks-at-the-international-humanitarian-conference-for-sudan-and-its-neighbours" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">70% of health facilities</a>&nbsp;in hard-to-reach areas are non-operational, leaving people without access to medical treatment. Estimates by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) go even further, approximating that the percentage of overall functioning health capacities is only 20-30%. “There is extremely limited availability of healthcare for people across the country,” Jean Stowell, MSF’s mission head in Sudan,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.msf.org/after-year-war-sudan-rapid-scale-response-needed" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">said&nbsp;</a>earlier in April.</p>
  2472.  
  2473.  
  2474.  
  2475. <p>More than 60 attacks on healthcare facilities and personnel have been recorded in Sudan, although this is likely an underestimate. And this is not all: health delivery is becoming incredibly difficult due to a chronic shortage of medical supplies, exacerbated by a blockade imposed by the official authorities. The circulation of humanitarian aid has been heavily weaponized by both warring parties in Sudan, with the government attempting to stop supplies from reaching places where they could be taken by the RSF, making the people dependent on them collateral damage; and the RSF looting warehouses where supplies are stored, once again depriving the population of the possibility of accessing them.</p>
  2476.  
  2477.  
  2478.  
  2479. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Public health authorities <a href="https://english.news.cn/20240419/583f5679433a4fca976abc9774a96451/c.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reported</a> 9,000 cases of dengue by April 18, 2024, with more than 60 people killed by the disease.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2480.  
  2481.  
  2482.  
  2483. <p>The combination of direct violence and limitations to aid has meant that some states, including Darfur, have not received medical supplies for the past year, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus recently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/385/bmj.q864" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">warned</a>. Health workers in Khartoum’s hospitals have also sounded the alarm about nonexistent supplies. “Our biggest challenge is the scarcity of medical supplies,” MSF doctors said. “We’ve run out of surgical equipment, and we are on the brink of stopping all work unless supplies arrive.”</p>
  2484.  
  2485.  
  2486.  
  2487. <p>Some hospitals have already run out of essential medicines, including artesunate, used in the treatment of malaria. “Patients are dying due to violence-related injuries and preventable illnesses; children are perishing due to malnutrition. Vaccines are running out, and there have already been outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and measles,” Christos Christou, MSF International President,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.msf.org/sudan-needs-are-growing-day-response-deeply-inadequate" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">said&nbsp;</a>of the situation.</p>
  2488.  
  2489.  
  2490.  
  2491. <p>“Across Sudan, women are dying because of complications during pregnancy or childbirth, and patients with chronic diseases are dying because they are running out of medication,” Christou stated.</p>
  2492.  
  2493.  
  2494.  
  2495. <p>Another major concern is represented by the high rates of hunger. Reports from North Darfur warn that almost a quarter of all children are acutely malnourished, and as many as 40% of pregnant and breastfeeding women face the same health risk. Compromised health status increases the vulnerability to usually treatable diseases like cholera, of which 11,000 cases have been&nbsp;<a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-neglected-war-operational-challenges-during-one-year-conflict-perspective-ngo" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">reported</a>.</p>
  2496.  
  2497.  
  2498.  
  2499. <p>An immune response weakened by malnutrition can easily make cholera, as well as other infectious diseases, deadly, a fact that has only added to the long list of concerns faced by women in Sudan every day. The increase in gender-based violence has been one of the most devastating side effects of the war, with women abducted, sold into slavery, and raped, as&nbsp;<a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/04/16/demilitarization-and-peace-sovereignty-are-foundations-for-global-health-peoples-health-assembly-concludes/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">described&nbsp;</a>by health activist Rawia Mahmoud during the 5th People’s Health Assembly.</p>
  2500.  
  2501.  
  2502.  
  2503. <p>Despite the extent of violence and atrocities witnessed in Sudan, the situation has received very little international response—shockingly little, as Christou put it. Response appeals coordinated by United Nations agencies remain grossly underfunded, and, despite new initiatives launched by the likes of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/04/15/france-hosts-conference-on-aid-to-war-torn-sudan_6668451_4.html" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">France&nbsp;</a>on the mark of the first year of the war, they will hardly bring any significant resolution to the situation if not accompanied by a firm dedication to achieve peace.</p>
  2504. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/after-a-year-of-war-in-sudan-public-health-concerns-deepen/">After a Year of War in Sudan, Public Health Concerns Deepen</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2505. ]]></content:encoded>
  2507. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/after-a-year-of-war-in-sudan-public-health-concerns-deepen/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  2508. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  2514. <item>
  2515. <title>&#8216;A Sad Reminder&#8217; for Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers As His Conviction Is Overturned</title>
  2516. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-sad-reminder-for-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-as-his-conviction-is-overturned/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-sad-reminder-for-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-as-his-conviction-is-overturned</link>
  2517. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-sad-reminder-for-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-as-his-conviction-is-overturned/#respond</comments>
  2519. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Jennifer Gerson /  The 19th]]></dc:creator>
  2520. <pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2024 15:47:57 +0000</pubDate>
  2521. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
  2522. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  2523. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  2524. <category><![CDATA[Social Justice]]></category>
  2525. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  2526. <category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>
  2527. <category><![CDATA[#MeToo]]></category>
  2528. <category><![CDATA[#TimesUp]]></category>
  2529. <category><![CDATA[harvey weinstein]]></category>
  2530. <category><![CDATA[hollywood]]></category>
  2531. <category><![CDATA[new york court of appeals]]></category>
  2532. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295874</guid>
  2533.  
  2534. <description><![CDATA[<p>Some say the ruling points to a disconnect between what it takes for survivors of sexual violence to be believed and what the legal system demands.</p>
  2535. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-sad-reminder-for-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-as-his-conviction-is-overturned/">&#8216;A Sad Reminder&#8217; for Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers As His Conviction Is Overturned</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2536. ]]></description>
  2537. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  2538. <p><strong>Women who accused Harvey Weinstein</strong> of sexual misconduct were stunned by the Thursday decision by the New York Court of Appeals to overturn his 2020 felony conviction, again speaking out about the former Hollywood mogul’s behavior. Both survivors and legal experts said the court’s ruling points to issues with how difficult it can be for survivors of sexual violence to be believed and how the criminal justice system works. </p>
  2539.  
  2540.  
  2541.  
  2542. <p>The state’s highest court, in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2024/Apr24/24opn24-Decision.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">4-3 decision</a>, said that “the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.” Because of this and other errors made by the trial judge, the appellate court said, Weinstein had not in fact received a fair trial — which necessitated the overturn of the verdict against him.&nbsp;</p>
  2543.  
  2544.  
  2545.  
  2546. <p>Weinstein has been serving a 23-year sentence in a federal prison in upstate New York after being found guilty of sexual misconduct. In 2022, he was also sentenced to 16 years in prison by a California judge for <a href="https://apnews.com/article/harvey-weinstein-verdict-los-angeles-rape-trial-1a3a9db4e4589a9e0fb03214bc01fecf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">raping a woman</a> in a Beverly Hills hotel room. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, who is in the middle of his <a href="https://19thnews.org/author/barbara-rodriguez/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">trial against former President Donald Trump</a>, must now decide whether he wishes to seek a retrial. </p>
  2547.  
  2548.  
  2549.  
  2550. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Weinstein has been serving a 23-year sentence in a federal prison in upstate New York after being found guilty of sexual misconduct.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2551.  
  2552.  
  2553.  
  2554. <p>Louisette Geiss, the co-writer and lyricist of the musical “The Right Girl” who&nbsp;<a href="https://variety.com/2017/film/news/harvey-weinstein-louisette-geiss-sexual-harassment-sundance-1202585901/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">accused Weinstein&nbsp;</a>of trying to force her to watch him masturbate in 2008, called Thursday’s ruling “a sad reminder of the uphill battle that women and survivors of sexual predators continue to face to be heard, validated, and ultimately, receive justice.”</p>
  2555.  
  2556.  
  2557.  
  2558. <p>Geiss emphasized that Weinstein had been found guilty in California, as well, and called Weinstein “nothing more than a sexual predator.”</p>
  2559.  
  2560.  
  2561.  
  2562. <p>“What I implore people to remember is how hard it was for all of the silence breakers to go through any of these trials. Yet, now once again, we are called to step up,” she said in a statement.&nbsp;</p>
  2563.  
  2564.  
  2565.  
  2566. <p>Women testified during Weinstein’s New York trial about alleged sexual misconduct they experienced at his hands, but Weinstein was not charged with crimes in all their cases. The choice of prosecutors to use their testimony was designed to establish a pattern of behavior by Weinstein. The appellate court, however, said in its decision that because the testimony detailed crimes allegedly committed by the defendant that he was not on trial for, it could not be included.&nbsp;</p>
  2567.  
  2568.  
  2569.  
  2570. <p>Deborah Tuerkheimer, a law professor at Northwestern University and former prosecutor in New York, said that, under New York law, sometimes testimony about uncharged crimes can be admitted during a trial. Usually that’s not allowed in criminal cases because of the presumption of innocence in our criminal justice system. But particularly in cases involving sex crimes, often a number of accusers are needed before they’re believed. </p>
  2571.  
  2572.  
  2573.  
  2574. <p>“There’s a disconnect between the universe outside of the courtroom and how, even in the #MeToo era, people tend to think about what sort of evidence they need to be convinced and then what happens inside the courtroom, where there are these very specific rules about what kind of evidence is allowed,” said Tuerkheimer, author of the book “<a href="https://www.deborahtuerkheimer.com/book-credible-deborah-tuerkheimer" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers</a>.”&nbsp;</p>
  2575.  
  2576.  
  2577.  
  2578. <p>Larissa Gomes, a writer and actor who <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-entertainment-news-updates-canadian-actress-larissa-gomes-alleges-1508276551-htmlstory.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">accused Weinstein</a> of assaulting her during a one-on-one meeting in 2000, called the news that Weinstein’s conviction was overturned “a gut punch.”</p>
  2579.  
  2580.  
  2581.  
  2582. <p>“It is a reminder of how epic the climb to justice can be in our legal system,” Gomes said in a statement. “Reading this felt like a huge blow to the significant progress made since his convictions, just knowing that this dangerous precedent will make it that much more challenging for prosecutors trying rape cases in the future is painful to imagine.”</p>
  2583.  
  2584.  
  2585.  
  2586. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“What I implore people to remember is how hard it was for all of the silence breakers to go through any of these trials. Yet, now once again, we are called to step up.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  2587.  
  2588.  
  2589.  
  2590. <p>Caitlin Dulany, a member of the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee and Los Angeles board member who&nbsp;<a href="https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/entertainment/2023/02/23/-survivors-supporting-survivors---weinstein-accuser-on-the-ongoing-trials" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">accused Weinstein</a>&nbsp;of an attempted assault in her apartment when he picked her up for a dinner appointment in 1996, said she was “absolutely devastated” by the ruling.&nbsp;</p>
  2591.  
  2592.  
  2593.  
  2594. <p>“So many of us lived with our stories for years,” Dulany said in a statement. “What Harvey Weinstein did to us affected our lives and careers in ways that we will never recover from. It is a travesty of justice, but I’m not surprised. … The fight goes on and survivors will win in the end.”</p>
  2595.  
  2596.  
  2597.  
  2598. <p>Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/25/nyregion/harvey-weinstein-appeal" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">told The New York Times</a>&nbsp;on Thursday morning that the appellate court’s decision was “not just a victory for Mr. Weinstein, but for every criminal defendant in the state of New York, and we compliment the Court of Appeals for upholding the most basic principles that a criminal defendant should have in a trial.” Aidala did not respond to The 19th’s request for comment.&nbsp;</p>
  2599.  
  2600.  
  2601.  
  2602. <p>Many survivors emphasized that Weinstein is not exonerated.&nbsp;</p>
  2603.  
  2604.  
  2605.  
  2606. <p>Sarah Anne Masse is a writer; an actor who appeared in “She Said,” about the New York Times reporting that brought accusations against Weinstein into the public; and the founder of the nonprofit organization Hire Survivors Hollywood. She accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct during a job interview to be a nanny for his children in 2008.</p>
  2607.  
  2608.  
  2609.  
  2610. <p>“The world has been forever changed by the women who were brave enough to challenge him in court,” Masse said in a statement. “However this is a stark reminder that the criminal justice system is not set up to serve actual justice and that anyone insisting that “me too is over” or “has gone too far” needs to look at the actual state of the world.”</p>
  2611.  
  2612.  
  2613.  
  2614. <p>Lindsay Goldbrum, an attorney at Outten &amp; Golden LLP, has represented six women who have accused Weinstein, including Taralê Wulff, who testified during Weinstein’s criminal trial in New York that he sexually assaulted her. Goldbrum also represented several Weinstein accusers in individual civil lawsuits, as well as the resolution of their claims as part of a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/movies/harvey-weinstein-settlement.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">global $17 million settlement with the Weinstein Company</a>. Goldbrum called the ruling “a leap backward for the rule of law.” The testimony of the accusers about uncharged crimes was crucial to proving that the sexual encounters were not consensual, she said.&nbsp;</p>
  2615.  
  2616.  
  2617.  
  2618. <p>The witnesses’ “only goal was to give a voice to dozens of other women who suffered so much,” Goldbrum said. “Today’s ruling unfortunately casts a dark shadow on their bravery and will undoubtedly deter future sexual assault victims from coming forward. To all victims of sexual assault who are retraumatized by today’s ruling, I am so sorry.”</p>
  2619.  
  2620.  
  2621.  
  2622. <p>Melissa Thompson, who <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/world-exclusive-video-shows-harvey-weinstein-behaving-inappropriately-with-businesswoman-11496038" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow">accused Weinstein of raping her</a> following a business meeting in 2011, said she hopes the development will lead to rules being changed to permit evidence like that presented during the Weinstein trial that led to the overturned conviction.</p>
  2623.  
  2624.  
  2625.  
  2626. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“What Harvey Weinstein did to us affected our lives and careers in ways that we will never recover from. It is a travesty of justice, but I’m not surprised.&#8221;</p></blockquote></figure>
  2627.  
  2628.  
  2629.  
  2630. <p>“The #MeToo movement blazed a trail that ultimately attained well-deserved justice in 2020. Regrettably, today’s appellate court decision represents a disgraceful and egregious procedural failure that reverberates throughout the realm of sexual assault victims,” Thompson said in a statement.&nbsp;</p>
  2631.  
  2632.  
  2633.  
  2634. <p>Tuerkheimer thinks that the criminal justice system itself is going to face a lot of scrutiny about whether it can deliver justice for survivors of sexual violence. While more people now understand why a victim might not report a crime immediately, or may maintain contact with an abuser or have a shaky memory, juries still struggle to judge the credibility of a single accuser, she said.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
  2635.  
  2636.  
  2637.  
  2638. <p>“When you’re talking about a criminal prosecution, that need for multiple accusers before one believes really does collide with the rules that are in place for trying these sorts of crimes,” she said.</p>
  2639.  
  2640.  
  2641.  
  2642. <p>Prosecutors may start turning to sex crimes experts to aid them in prosecution, to help dispel myths that jurors may believe about sex crimes.&nbsp;</p>
  2643.  
  2644.  
  2645.  
  2646. <p>“Until the credibility discounting stops being so commonplace, prosecutors are going to struggle,” Tuerkheimer said. “They’re going to continue to have challenges with these cases.”</p>
  2647. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-sad-reminder-for-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-as-his-conviction-is-overturned/">&#8216;A Sad Reminder&#8217; for Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers As His Conviction Is Overturned</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2648. ]]></content:encoded>
  2650. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-sad-reminder-for-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-as-his-conviction-is-overturned/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  2651. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  2657. <item>
  2658. <title>Salman Rushdie Confronts a World Where Free Speech Is No Longer Sacred</title>
  2659. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/salman-rushdie-confronts-a-world-where-free-speech-is-no-longer-sacred/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=salman-rushdie-confronts-a-world-where-free-speech-is-no-longer-sacred</link>
  2660. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/salman-rushdie-confronts-a-world-where-free-speech-is-no-longer-sacred/#respond</comments>
  2662. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Paul Giles /  The Conversation]]></dc:creator>
  2663. <pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2024 15:37:23 +0000</pubDate>
  2664. <category><![CDATA[Arts & Culture]]></category>
  2665. <category><![CDATA[Belief & Religion]]></category>
  2666. <category><![CDATA[Books]]></category>
  2667. <category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
  2668. <category><![CDATA[Opinion]]></category>
  2669. <category><![CDATA[fatwa]]></category>
  2670. <category><![CDATA[free speech]]></category>
  2671. <category><![CDATA[Hadi Matar]]></category>
  2672. <category><![CDATA[Knife]]></category>
  2673. <category><![CDATA[Salman Rushdie]]></category>
  2674. <category><![CDATA[The Satanic Verses]]></category>
  2675. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295871</guid>
  2676.  
  2677. <description><![CDATA[<p>In 'Knife,' his memoir on narrowly surviving a vicious attack, the acclaimed author interrogates a world where liberal principles have become old-fashioned.</p>
  2678. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/salman-rushdie-confronts-a-world-where-free-speech-is-no-longer-sacred/">Salman Rushdie Confronts a World Where Free Speech Is No Longer Sacred</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2679. ]]></description>
  2680. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  2681. <p><strong><a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/knife-9781787334809" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Knife</a> is Salman Rushdie’s account</strong> of how he narrowly survived <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-salman-rushdie-has-been-a-scapegoat-for-complex-historical-differences-188701" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">an attempt on his life</a> in August 2022, in which he lost his right eye and partial use of his left hand. The attack ironically came when Rushdie was delivering a lecture on “the creation in America of safe spaces for writers from elsewhere”, at Chautauqua, in upstate New York.</p>
  2682.  
  2683.  
  2684.  
  2685. <p>A man named Hadi Matar has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/13/hadi-matar-charged-with-attempted-of-salman-rushdie" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">charged with second-degree attempted murder</a>. He is an American-born resident of New Jersey in his early twenties, whose parents emigrated from Lebanon. Prosecutors allege the assault was a belated response to the fatwa, a legal ruling under Sharia law, issued in 1989 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.</p>
  2686.  
  2687.  
  2688.  
  2689. <p>The Iranian leader called for Rushdie’s assassination after the publication of the author’s novel <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-satanic-verses-9780963270702" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">The Satanic Verses</a>, which allegedly contained a blasphemous representation of the prophet Muhammad. Matar has pleaded not guilty to the charge, and his trial is still pending.</p>
  2690.  
  2691.  
  2692.  
  2693. <p>Knife is very good at recalling Rushdie’s grim memories of the attack. (His assailant appears in this book merely under the sobriquet of “the A”.) It also articulates with typically dry, self-deprecating humour the dismal prognoses of his various doctors. These are balanced against his own incorrigible sense of “optimism” and ardent will to live, along with the staunch love and support of his new wife, the writer and artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths.</p>
  2694.  
  2695.  
  2696.  
  2697. <p>This is a book where you can feel the author wincing with pain. “Let me offer this piece of advice to you, gentle reader,” he says: “if you can avoid having your eyelid sewn shut … avoid it. It really, really hurts.”</p>
  2698.  
  2699.  
  2700.  
  2701. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>While the author’s personal recollections of this traumatic event are powerful, the declared aim of Knife is to “try to understand” the wider context of this event.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2702.  
  2703.  
  2704.  
  2705. <p>But at the same time, it is a story of courage and resilience, with Rushdie cheered by the unequivocal support he receives from political leaders in the United States and France, as well as writers around the world. He cites as a parallel to his own experience&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-i-still-support-charlie-hebdo-47795" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">the Charlie Hebdo attacks</a>&nbsp;in France, in which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN25T0DN/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">12 people were murdered</a>&nbsp;in the Paris offices of a satirical magazine that had supposedly defamed the Islamic Prophet.</p>
  2706.  
  2707.  
  2708.  
  2709. <p>While the author’s personal recollections of this traumatic event are powerful, the declared aim of Knife is to “try to understand” the wider context of this event. Here, for a number of reasons, Rushdie is not on such secure ground.</p>
  2710.  
  2711.  
  2712.  
  2713. <p>One of his great strengths as a novelist is the way he presents “worlds in collision […] quarrelling realities fighting for the same segment of space-time”. This phrase comes from his 2012 memoir <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/joseph-anton-9781448155606" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Joseph Anton</a>, the pseudonym he used during his years of protection by British security services in the immediate aftermath of the fatwa.</p>
  2714.  
  2715.  
  2716.  
  2717. <p>Rushdie, who studied history at Cambridge University, described himself in Joseph Anton as “a historian by training”. He said “the point of his fiction” is to show how lives are “shaped by great forces”, while still retaining “the ability to change the direction of those forces” through positive choices.<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/589149/original/file-20240419-18-nuxoo8.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
  2718.  
  2719.  
  2720.  
  2721. <p>The second part of Knife is focused around Rushdie’s unwavering commitment to the principles of free speech in his work for PEN and other literary organisations. Indeed, a speech he gave at PEN America in 2022 is reprinted in the book verbatim.</p>
  2722.  
  2723.  
  2724.  
  2725. <p>“Art challenges orthodoxy,” declares Rushdie. He associates himself with a legacy of Enlightenment thinkers going back to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Paine" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Thomas Paine</a>, whose work influenced both the American and French Revolutions. For these intellectuals, principles of secular reason and personal liberty should always supersede blind conformity to social or religious authority.</p>
  2726.  
  2727.  
  2728.  
  2729. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Old-fashioned liberal principles</h3>
  2730.  
  2731.  
  2732.  
  2733. <p>In Knife, though, Rushdie the protagonist confronts a world where such liberal principles now appear old-fashioned. He claims “the groupthink of radical Islam” has been shaped by “the groupthink-manufacturing giants, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter”.</p>
  2734.  
  2735.  
  2736.  
  2737. <p>But for many non-religious younger people, any notion of free choice also appears illusory, the anachronistic residue of an earlier age. Millennials and Generation Z are concerned primarily with issues of environmental catastrophe and social justice, and they tend to regard liberal individualism as both ineffective and self-indulgent.</p>
  2738.  
  2739.  
  2740.  
  2741. <p>As a perceptive social historian, Rushdie notes how “new definitions of the social good” have arisen, in which “protecting the rights and sensibilities of groups perceived as vulnerable […] take precedence over freedom of speech.”</p>
  2742.  
  2743.  
  2744.  
  2745. <p>Knife itself is understandably reductive, even dismissive, in its treatment of the assailant. The author contemplates the prospect of a meeting with him, but decides that is “impossible” and so tries to “imagine my way into his head” by inventing an “imagined conversation”. But this is not entirely convincing.</p>
  2746.  
  2747.  
  2748.  
  2749. <p>Rushdie’s point about how the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Quran" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Quran</a> itself is immersed in the worlds of “interpretation” and “translation” might work well in a seminar on world literature, but it is hardly the kind of argument likely to persuade a jihadist who, on his own admission, has read only two pages of The Satanic Verses.</p>
  2750.  
  2751.  
  2752.  
  2753. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“Protecting the rights and sensibilities of groups perceived as vulnerable […] take precedence over freedom of speech.”<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/589151/original/file-20240419-16-l5x2ud.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p></blockquote></figure>
  2754.  
  2755.  
  2756.  
  2757. <p>Rushdie’s stylistic tendency to dehumanise his characters is characteristically humorous and perhaps therapeutic. He renames his ear, nose and throat doctor “Dr. ENT, as if he were an ancient tree-creature from The Lord of the Rings”. But it also carries the risk of diminishing his characters to puppets being manipulated by the author.</p>
  2758.  
  2759.  
  2760.  
  2761. <p>This is the kind of power relation interrogated self-consciously in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/fury-9781407019635" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Fury</a>&nbsp;(2001) and other fictional works that explore the limitations of authority. Rushdie is a great novelist because of his openness to questions about the scope of authority and authorship, but he is a less effective polemicist. The structural ambiguities and inconsistencies that enhance the multidimensional reach of his fiction tend to be lost when he takes on the mantle of a political controversialist.</p>
  2762.  
  2763.  
  2764.  
  2765. <p>Knife hovers generically in between these two positions. One of the book’s most interesting aspects is its probing of the weird and supernatural. Two nights before his attack, the author dreams of being assaulted by a man with a spear in a Roman amphitheatre. Citing Walt Whitman on the uses of self-contradiction, he records: “It felt like a premonition (even though premonitions are things in which I don’t believe).”</p>
  2766.  
  2767.  
  2768.  
  2769. <p>Similarly, he describes his survival, with the knife landing only a millimetre from his brain, as “the irruption of the miraculous into the life of someone who didn’t believe that the miraculous existed”. Later, he observes: “No, I don’t believe in miracles, but, yes, my books do.”</p>
  2770.  
  2771.  
  2772.  
  2773. <p>This speaks to a paradoxical disjunction between the relative narrowness of authorial vision and the much wider scope of imagined worlds that Rushdie’s best fiction evokes.<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/589141/original/file-20240419-16-6h4bs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
  2774.  
  2775.  
  2776.  
  2777. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Suffused in the culture of Islam</h3>
  2778.  
  2779.  
  2780.  
  2781. <p>The Satanic Verses itself is suffused in the culture of Islam as much as James Joyce’s&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-wonder-of-joyces-ulysses-79417" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Ulysses</a>&nbsp;is suffused in the culture of Catholicism. In both cases, the question of specific religious “belief” becomes a secondary consideration.</p>
  2782.  
  2783.  
  2784.  
  2785. <p>In their hypothetical conversation, the author of Knife tries to convince his assailant of the value of such ambivalence. He protests how his notorious novel revolves around “an East London Indian family running a café-restaurant, portrayed with real love”.</p>
  2786.  
  2787.  
  2788.  
  2789. <p>But of course such subtleties are hopelessly wasted on an activist who has no interest in literary nuances and who desires only to execute the instructions of a religious leader. Given the prevalence of what Rushdie calls the contemporary “offence industry,” it is sobering to think that Ulysses, if published today, could be more liable to censorship for blasphemy rather than, as in 1922, obscenity.</p>
  2790.  
  2791.  
  2792.  
  2793. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>The Satanic Verses itself is suffused in the culture of Islam as much as James Joyce’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-wonder-of-joyces-ulysses-79417" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Ulysses</a> is suffused in the culture of Catholicism.</p></blockquote></figure>
  2794.  
  2795.  
  2796.  
  2797. <p>In many ways, then, Knife is a book about cultural cross-purposes. Though Rushdie is understandably vituperative on a personal level, his work’s conceptual undercurrents turn on the fate of the liberal imagination in an increasingly post-liberal world.</p>
  2798.  
  2799.  
  2800.  
  2801. <p>There are moving tributes here to the writers&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pre-eminent-novelist-critic-of-his-generation-martin-amiss-pyrotechnic-prose-captured-lifes-destructive-energies-206069" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Martin Amis</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/milan-kunderas-remarkable-work-explored-oppression-inhumanity-and-the-absurdity-of-being-human-209679" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Milan Kundera</a>, friends who died recently. There are also melancholy acknowledgements of illnesses suffered by&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-achieve-paul-austers-literary-genius-start-living-uncomfortably-82612" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Paul Auster</a>&nbsp;and by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/18/hanif-kureishi-to-publish-memoir-about-accident-that-left-him-paralysed-shattered" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Hanif Kureishi</a>, whom Rushdie regards as his “younger-brother-in literature”.</p>
  2802.  
  2803.  
  2804.  
  2805. <p>This generation of writers saw the multifaceted nature of fiction, with its inclinations towards magical realism, as a way to resist what Joseph Anton calls the potentially “flattening effect” of political slogans. Amis believed one of the reasons for the general decline of interest in reading literature was a new preference for the security of ready-made solutions rather than experiential challenges.</p>
  2806.  
  2807.  
  2808.  
  2809. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">Attachment to past traditions</h3>
  2810.  
  2811.  
  2812.  
  2813. <p>But in the era of Facebook and Twitter, brevity and simplicity have become more compelling than complexity. This categorical shift has been shaped not only by the explosion of information technology, but also the de-centring of Europe and North America as undisputed leaders of intellectual and political culture.</p>
  2814.  
  2815.  
  2816.  
  2817. <p>Rushdie discusses in Knife how, besides the Hindu legends of his youth, he has also been “more influenced by the Christian world than I realized”. He cites the music of Handel and the art of Michelangelo as particular influences. Yet this again highlights Rushdie’s attachments to traditions firmly rooted in the past.</p>
  2818.  
  2819.  
  2820.  
  2821. <p>Whereas the dark comedy of&nbsp;<a href="https://theconversation.com/reading-french-literature-in-a-time-of-terror-63036" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Michel Houellebecq</a>&nbsp;depicts an environment in which advances in biogenetics, information technology and political authoritarianism have rendered individual choice of little or no consequence, Rushdie gallantly flies the flag for privacy and personal freedom.</p>
  2822.  
  2823.  
  2824.  
  2825. <p>But he is also describing a world where such forms of liberty seem to be passing away. In that sense, Knife feels like an elegy for the passing of an historical era.</p>
  2826.  
  2827.  
  2828.  
  2829. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Rushdie discusses in Knife how, besides the Hindu legends of his youth, he has also been “more influenced by the Christian world than I realized.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  2830.  
  2831.  
  2832.  
  2833. <p>The memoir recalls how Rushdie’s “first thought” when his assailant approached was the likely imminence of death. He cites the reported last words of Henry James: “So it has come at last, the distinguished thing.”</p>
  2834.  
  2835.  
  2836.  
  2837. <p>James, like Rushdie, was a writer who lived through profound historical changes, from the Victorian manners represented in his early stories to new worlds of mass immigration and skyscrapers portrayed in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/469709" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">The American Scene</a>&nbsp;(1907).</p>
  2838.  
  2839.  
  2840.  
  2841. <p>Part of James’s greatness lay in the way he was able to accommodate these radical shifts within his writing. Rushdie is equally brave and brilliant as a novelist, and he may well ultimately succeed in capturing such seismic shifts, but Knife is not a work in which his artistic antennae appear to their best advantage.</p>
  2842.  
  2843.  
  2844.  
  2845. <p>Though Rushdie specifically says he “doesn’t like to think of writing as therapy”, he admits sessions with his own therapist “helped me more than I am able to put into words”. The writing of this book clearly operates in part as a form of catharsis, with Rushdie admitting his fear that “until I dealt with the attack I wouldn’t be able to write anything else”.</p>
  2846.  
  2847.  
  2848.  
  2849. <h3 class="wp-block-heading">‘A curiously one-eyed book’</h3>
  2850.  
  2851.  
  2852.  
  2853. <p>There are many valuable things in Knife. Particularly striking are the immediacy with which he recalls the shocking assault, the black humour with which he relates medical procedures and the sense of “exhilaration” at finally returning home with his wife to Manhattan.</p>
  2854.  
  2855.  
  2856.  
  2857. <p>Yet there are also many loose ends, and the book’s conclusion, that the assailant has in the end become “simply irrelevant” to him, is implausible. Rushdie presents his survival as an “act of will” and is adamant he does not wish henceforth to retreat into the security cocoon that protected him during the 1990s. He insists he does not want to write “frightened” or “revenge” books. In truth, however, Knife contains elements of both these traits.</p>
  2858.  
  2859.  
  2860.  
  2861. <p>As a congenital optimist, Rushdie says he takes “inspiration” from the Nawab of Pataudi (given name Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi), an Indian cricketer whose illustrious career began after he had been “involved in a car accident and had lost the sight of one eye”.</p>
  2862.  
  2863.  
  2864.  
  2865. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>Rushdie presents his survival as an “act of will” and is adamant he does not wish henceforth to retreat into the security cocoon that protected him during the 1990s.<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/589150/original/file-20240419-18-sd894t.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p></blockquote></figure>
  2866.  
  2867.  
  2868.  
  2869. <p>But Rushdie does not mention the similar fate suffered by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/oct/21/colin-milburn-play-when-the-eye-has-gone" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Colin Milburn</a>, an England international cricketer who lost an eye in a car accident in 1969 and who was never able to recover his sporting career. This was despite several brave comeback attempts by Milburn that likewise cited Pataudi as an example.</p>
  2870.  
  2871.  
  2872.  
  2873. <p>Rushdie is a remarkable novelist, whose epic work&nbsp;<a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/midnights-children-9780099511892" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">Midnight’s Children</a>&nbsp;(1981) has twice (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/10/news.bookerprize" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">in 1993 and 2008</a>) been voted the best-ever winner of the Booker Prize. Knife, by contrast, is a curiously one-eyed book, in a metaphorical, as well as a literal sense.</p>
  2874.  
  2875.  
  2876.  
  2877. <p>The author declares his intention to use his own artistic language as “a knife” to “cut open the world and reveal its meaning”. But the challenge for the rest of his writing career will surely involve deploying his extraordinary talents to assimilate these experiences in a more expansive fashion.</p>
  2878.  
  2879.  
  2880.  
  2881. <p>This should enable Rushdie to address, like Henry James in his ambitious late phase, the intricate entanglements of a changing world.<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/589145/original/file-20240419-16-3gbd45.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank"></a></p>
  2882. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/salman-rushdie-confronts-a-world-where-free-speech-is-no-longer-sacred/">Salman Rushdie Confronts a World Where Free Speech Is No Longer Sacred</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2883. ]]></content:encoded>
  2885. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/salman-rushdie-confronts-a-world-where-free-speech-is-no-longer-sacred/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  2886. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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  2891. </item>
  2892. <item>
  2893. <title>A Texas Lawsuit Against Extreme Heat in Prisons</title>
  2894. <link>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-texas-lawsuit-against-extreme-heat-in-prisons/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-texas-lawsuit-against-extreme-heat-in-prisons</link>
  2895. <comments>https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-texas-lawsuit-against-extreme-heat-in-prisons/#respond</comments>
  2897. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Tana Ganeva]]></dc:creator>
  2898. <pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2024 15:22:12 +0000</pubDate>
  2899. <category><![CDATA[Courts & Law]]></category>
  2900. <category><![CDATA[Ear to the Ground]]></category>
  2901. <category><![CDATA[News]]></category>
  2902. <category><![CDATA[Prison Reform]]></category>
  2903. <category><![CDATA[US]]></category>
  2904. <category><![CDATA[extreme heat]]></category>
  2905. <category><![CDATA[heat stroke]]></category>
  2906. <category><![CDATA[prisoner rights]]></category>
  2907. <category><![CDATA[texas]]></category>
  2908. <category><![CDATA[Texas Prisons Community]]></category>
  2909. <guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.truthdig.com/?p=295848</guid>
  2910.  
  2911. <description><![CDATA[<p>With summer on the way, advocates say access to cool air amidst stifling heat is a constitutional right.</p>
  2912. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-texas-lawsuit-against-extreme-heat-in-prisons/">A Texas Lawsuit Against Extreme Heat in Prisons</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2913. ]]></description>
  2914. <content:encoded><![CDATA[
  2915. <p class="has-drop-cap">Last July, Truthdig reported on extreme heat in Texas prisons. Many of the facilities are not air-conditioned, and cells can reach 149 degrees Fahrenheit on the <a href="https://www.arch.tamu.edu/news/2022/11/16/life-threatening-conditions-in-texas-prisons/" rel="nofollow external" target="_blank">heat index</a>, a measure of temperature combined with humidity. One inmate memorably described the summer months in the facility as being “baked in a concrete oven.”</p>
  2916.  
  2917.  
  2918. <span id="block_586630c548f5c45f051381ecf8d5fcbf" class="td-article-related-box-block block md:inline md:float-right w-[350px] max-w-full border-4 border-black p-6 md:ml-5 !my-12 !md:my-6">
  2919. <span class="text-red block font-proxima-nova absolute -translate-y-11 pt-2 pb-1.5 px-3 bg-white font-semibold uppercase tracking-widest text-lg leading-none">Related</span>
  2920. <span class="flex flex-col gap-2 font-semibold font-news-gothic-std">
  2921. <span class="block">
  2922. <span class="block">
  2923. <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/its-like-being-baked-in-a-concrete-oven/" class="!border-0">
  2924. It’s Like Being Baked in a Concrete Oven </a>
  2925. </span>
  2926. <span class="block mt-2">
  2927. <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/its-like-being-baked-in-a-concrete-oven/"><img decoding="async" width="405" height="270" src="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-405x270.jpg" class="attachment-16:9-medium size-16:9-medium wp-post-image" alt="" srcset="https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-405x270.jpg 405w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-270x180.jpg 270w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-608x405.jpg 608w, https://www.truthdig.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/AP17173745235886-878x585.jpg 878w" sizes="(max-width: 405px) 100vw, 405px" /></a>
  2928. </span>
  2929. </span>
  2930. </span>
  2931. </span>
  2932.  
  2933.  
  2934.  
  2935. <p>With summer again looming, a lawsuit filed against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice is using similar language about cooking humans to death. Filed Monday by the Texas Prisons Community, it asserts that extreme heat in prison is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment — a violation of the Eighth amendment. “Texas prisoners are being cooked to death,” states a report linked to the lawsuit.&nbsp;</p>
  2936.  
  2937.  
  2938.  
  2939. <p>The suit is being brought on behalf of Berhardt Tiede, an inmate at TDCJ Estelle Unit in Huntsville, Texas, who suffers from diabetes and hypertension. Last summer, the 65-year-old had a likely stroke inside his cell when the temperature hit 112 degrees, according to the lawsuit. Every year, an average of 14 Texas inmates die from causes associated with extreme heat.&nbsp;</p>
  2940.  
  2941.  
  2942.  
  2943. <p>Among the groups backing the suit is the state’s Correctional Officers Union. “We’re not trying to make this lush, we’re trying to make it humane,” said Lancy Lowry, former head of the jail guards’ group. “These are Third World conditions. We’re supposed to run prisons, not concentration camps. The incarceration is their punishment, not cooking them to death.”</p>
  2944.  
  2945.  
  2946.  
  2947. <figure class="wp-block-pullquote alignleft has-text-align-left"><blockquote><p>“We’re not trying to make this lush, we’re trying to make it humane.”</p></blockquote></figure>
  2948.  
  2949.  
  2950.  
  2951. <p>According to Texas Prisons Community, 70% of prisons in the state lack air-conditioning. Because heat builds up in the concrete, this leaves 85,000 inmates to bake in cells that can hit highs of 149 degrees. Fahrenheit.&nbsp;</p>
  2952.  
  2953.  
  2954.  
  2955. <p>One of them is Amy Gonzales, a 52-year-old inmate at a Fort Worth facility.&nbsp;</p>
  2956.  
  2957.  
  2958.  
  2959. <p>“It can get to be 110 degrees with stifling humidity — you have trouble breathing,” Gonzales tells Truthdig. “Some of the ladies lay down with ice on their bodies to cool down. Some have had heat stroke. It is hard to drink lots of the recommended water in the summertime if you are someone that suffers from heart failure or kidney failure requiring hemodialysis.”&nbsp;</p>
  2960.  
  2961.  
  2962.  
  2963. <p>While Gonzales’ federal facility technically has air-conditioning, it often breaks and the authorities are in no hurry to fix it, she says.&nbsp;</p>
  2964.  
  2965.  
  2966.  
  2967. <p class="is-td-marked">“You have no idea what it is like to have a basic necessity such as fresh air and a cool breeze blowing on you until you lose it.”</p>
  2968. <p>The post <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-texas-lawsuit-against-extreme-heat-in-prisons/">A Texas Lawsuit Against Extreme Heat in Prisons</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.truthdig.com">Truthdig</a>.</p>
  2969. ]]></content:encoded>
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