Skip to content
Images of the Day:
Before people had an easy way to see video footage of police murders, headlines crediting the police with just and noble actions couldn’t be effectively questioned. We’re still back there in the dark ages when it comes to war murders, but we can overcome the lack of quickly shared videos if we choose to. When the headlines celebrate some sort of “victory” in Mosul or anywhere else, we can point out that the videos of people being blown up in their houses would be truly horrific if we had them. This is not, after all, a point on which there can actually be any question. The police who murder innocents say they serve a grander purpose of maintaining law and order. Watching the videos of what they do eliminates all possibility of taking that seriously. — David Swanson, What Police Videos Teach Us About Wars
Videos of the Day:
U.S.
Perpetual War and Genocide Against Indigenous Peoples:
Media Advisory: Journalist Amy Goodman to Turn Herself in to North Dakota Authorities “I will go back to North Dakota to fight this charge. It is a clear violation of the First Amendment,” said Goodman. “I was doing my job as a journalist, covering a violent attack on Native American protesters.”
Standing Rock Sioux Protectors Intensify Fight Against Dakota Pipeline Construction The tribe has made treaties with the United States for more than a century and a half, and every one of them has been broken by the federal government. So it should come as no surprise that a panel of federal judges ruled against the Standing Rock Sioux, allowing construction of the controversial $3.8 billion oil pipeline to continue. To add insult to injury, the decision came, surprisingly, on a Sunday, on the eve of Columbus Day, which many indigenous people view as a day celebrating the start of the genocide against native peoples in the Western Hemisphere. By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan
U.S. Enters Yemen War Directly for the First Time With Attack on Houthis The U.S. military directly attacked Houthi rebels in Yemen for the first time on Wednesday — firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at three rebel-held radar stations on the Red Sea coast. The attack, which was in retaliation for a failed missile attack on a U.S. Navy destroyer on Sunday, risks drawing the U.S. further into the 18-month war. By Alex Emmons
Did the U.S. Assist the Disastrous Bombing of a Funeral in Yemen? The bombing killed over 140 people and injured as many as 600. By Ken Klippenstein and Paul Gottinger 
An Urgently Necessary Briefing on Syria by Gary Leupp
Ecuador’s Legal Battle With Chevron Foreshadows Global Corporate Coup D’état By Kyla Sankey 
International tribunal seeks to build case against Monsanto Monsanto is going on trial! Not, alas, in an official legal proceeding but instead a “civil society initiative” that will provide moral judgment only. The International Monsanto Tribunal will conduct hearings in The Hague this weekend, October 15 and 16, and although not having legal force, its organizers believe the opinions its international panel of judges will issue will provide victims and their legal counsel with arguments and legal grounds for further lawsuits in courts of law. The organizers also see the tribunal as raising awareness of Monsanto Company’s practices and the dangers of industrial and chemical agriculture. by Systemic Disorder
Ongoing Big Energy Crisis:
LNG-By-Rail Hits Tracks in Alaska: What Are the Risks and Why the Secrecy? For the first time ever, liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been shipped by railroad in the U.S., prompting concerns about risks of accidents and a lack of state or federal regulation for the new and hazardous cargo. The 40-foot long cryogenic tanks owned by the Japanese company Hitachi, built to be transported by rail, truck, and barge, will each carry more than 7,000 gallons of natural gas, which has been chilled down to negative 260 degrees Fahrenheit, from Anchorage to Fairbanks, Alaska. The company Alaska Railroad will do the carrying. It’s being closely watched by both the oil and gas and railroad industries, which say that shipping LNG by rail is cheaper and more efficient than hauling it by truck. Alaska Railroad points to Japan as a successful example of the robust transport of LNG-by-rail. But it’s also raised concerns among environmentalists, who argue that not only is the process potentially dangerous, but that it represents a further build-out of fossil fuel infrastructure as the climate crisis worsens. By Sharon Kelly and Steve Horn
Black Liberation/ Civil Rights:
Prison Strike Having Major Financial Impact On California The Loss of Prison Slave Labor Means the Loss of More Than $600,000 Every Day of the Strike September 9, 2016 was the start of the largest prison strike in U.S. history. Over 72,000 incarcerated workers in 22 states refused to provide their labor to profit the prison industrial complex. California forces 5,588 incarcerated workers to labor in exchange for little or no compensation.
Thousands in ‘indefinite detention’ in Cook County Jail because they can’t afford bond Human rights advocates say poor people are being denied justice because they can’t afford bond, a mass incarceration that includes thousands of defendants in Cook County Jail. Fifteen million people are locked up every year in the U.S. on criminal charges. For many it is “indefinite detention” because they spend years just waiting to go to trial. Activists call this mass incarceration a human rights crisis, and say Cook County is one of the biggest offenders. One single mother in Chicago has been behind bars for more than two years awaiting justice. By Chuck Goudie and Barb Markoff
Workers Heath Declines Due to Deregulation and Austerity Safety Cutbacks: Black Lung Among Coal Miners At Highest Level In 40 Years Rates of a deadly form of black lung are the highest they’ve been in 40 years among Appalachian coal miners, according to federal experts. Scientists from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health published a letter Monday in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine that stated that levels of progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) have risen to levels not seen since the early 1970s among coal miners in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia. The high numbers come just 15 years after the “debilitating and entirely preventable respiratory disease” was “virtually eradicated,” the scientists note. By Katie Valentine
Economy:
US banks planning exodus from Brexit Britain, says French minister Finance minister Michel Sapin says banks had confirmed to him they would move some activities to the continent when the UK leaves the EU
World:
Millions of Refugees Are Suffering from the Crisis of Having a Passport from ‘Nowhere’ Those who carry these passports from countries like Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia arrive at international borders only to discover they aren’t considered people. By Vijay Prashad 
France: Shifts to left and right reflect growing class contradictions France witnessed a wave of intense class struggle earlier this year with the strikes and mass protests against the government’s new law on labour relations. The law was eventually passed in July and the movement died down, but now the working class and youth is preparing to move from the trade union front to the political. by Fred Weston and Jérôme Métellus 
Health, Science, Education, and Welfare:
The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero The Nuclear Age began with the utter destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Survivors of these bombings have borne witness to the death, devastation, pain and suffering that resulted from the use of nuclear weapons. They have given ample testimony to the horrors they experienced. Their most powerful and persistent insight is: “We must abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.” The “we” in that statement is “humanity” and the “us” is “all of us.” The weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were small compared to the thermonuclear weapons subsequently developed, including those in today’s nuclear arsenals. by David Krieger
U.S. 1% Crooks Get Golden Parachutes!
Quote of the Day:
Environment:
Film Review: ‘Do Not Resist’ Confronts the Frightening Militarization of American Police By Jordan Riefe
Labor: