Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=60150"><span class="small">Nadja Sieniawski, Jacobin</span></a>
Saturday, 17 July 2021 08:16
Sieniawski writes: "After weeks-long massive protests were put on pause, Colombia's future is more uncertain than ever. The 2022 elections will be critical in determining whether the country will return to the miserable status quo under the thumb of the United States, or blaze a new leftward path."
Women shout slogans during a demonstration against the Colombian government's proposed tax reform, in Bogota. (photo: Fernando Vergara/AP)
Colombia's Future Is Up in the Air
By Nadja Sieniawski, Jacobin
17 July 21
After weeks-long massive protests were put on pause, Colombia’s future is more uncertain than ever. The 2022 elections will be critical in determining whether the country will return to the miserable status quo under the thumb of the United States, or blaze a new leftward path.
eginning earlier this summer, Colombia was rocked by weeks of unprecedented anti-government protests that left behind wreckage in many of Colombia’s cities, from Cali to the capital Bogotá, reminiscent of the bitter days of its civil war. But despite heavy police brutality, many Colombians felt hopeful that real change was within reach.
Today, Colombia’s cities have returned to a bizarre state of tranquility. Leaving a trail of damaged infrastructure, the protests were suspended in early June amid a surge in COVID-19 cases. But Colombians have pledged to restart the protests on July 20, when the new legislative period starts. Union leaders are already working on laws to present to Congress on that date.
The protests started as peaceful marches on April 28, 2021, in response to proposed tax reforms, which increased food and utility prices, as well as a hike in income tax. But a year into the pandemic that has pushed more than 3.5 million Colombians into poverty, that tax reform — which would have seen anyone with a monthly income of $656 or more affected — only fueled long-brewing anger.
After successfully turning back the tax bill, protests turned into a major uprising, with demands to fix the health care system, fight corruption, scrap university tuition fees, and more. When the Colombian militarized anti-riot police unit Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (ESMAD) began cracking down on peaceful protesters with the use of tear gas, water cannons, and lethal weaponry, the protests spiraled into violence.
“Day after day, people from all corners of society came together to defend their rights,” Daniela Agudelo Pinta and Jonathan Grajales Delgado, youth activists from Buga, a town northwest of Cali, told me. “And for that, the state was attacking us. No matter how heavily armed your police are, we had to show that we won’t give in. Many people have simply nothing to lose anymore.”
As rising numbers of COVID-19 cases threatened to overburden the country’s fragile health system, protest organizers called to suspend demonstrations. Talks between dedicated strike committees and the Centro Democrático government achieved little to no progress. With a return to the protests set for July 20, Colombia, for now, is at a stalemate.
“The protests have not achieved the desired objective, the objective of real change,” said Diego Fernando Campo Valencia, founder of the NGO Fundación Proyectando Vidas. “Some first agreements were reached, but the national government is just handing out empty words. The government has no real interest in sticking to its promises. And as people realize that, it will be certain that the protests will return stronger and bigger on July 20.”
Meanwhile, the government continues to escape accountability for more than sixty civilian deaths that have been reported as a result of the protests. Human rights groups were quick to express alarm about the “excessive and disproportionate” use of force against protesters. Trained to fight paramilitary groups and the FARC, Amnesty International denounced the employment of “paramilitary strategies” against civilians. Smearing protesters as terrorists and vandals, the center-right government led by President Iván Duque defended the use of heavy police force.
While the death toll is disputed, the real number is widely believed to be much higher. More than four hundred people are reported missing to date. Women and underage girls repeatedly described sexual abuse by police officers.
More concerned to repair the damage done to its reputation, little hope is set on Duque’s Centro Democrático party for a lack of confidence in its ability to engage in a meaningful dialogue with protesters.
“Colombia’s biggest danger is that we forget. Our resistance to this system of inequality is a significant moment in our history. We need to affect a lasting change in our nation’s thinking,” Jonathan said. “The current sentiment needs to be sustained at least until the next election; this is where we must see the real change happening.”
If elections were tomorrow in Colombia, the outcome would likely mark the start of a new era of left-wing politics in the Latin American country that has been controlled by the center-right Centro Democrático party since former president Álvaro Uribe came to power in 2002.
Colombia, a long-standing US client state, is a keystone of US foreign policy toward Latin America. With more than $7 billion spent in aid since the ’70s, largely on supplying military training and equipment, the United States maintains strong interest in ensuring the Colombian president is a trusted ally.
In 2018, left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro lost his bid for president against Duque as the failures of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela helped shift votes away from Petro, after the Centro Democrático party stoked fears of Colombia becoming a second Venezuela. Duque’s government, strongly under control by predecessor Uribe, will attempt to replay those fears ahead of the 2022 election in a desperate cling to power.
“The Centro Democrático party is dividing Colombia by labeling protesters as part of a left radical movement,” said Diego, whose foundation is based in Cali. “They are building on people’s fears of violence and instability from the past, claiming that they are reemerging within these protests.”
President Duque is rallying the party’s traditional base of religious conservatives, rural landowners, and segments of the middle class concerned with crime. His message is that Centro Democrático is the only party that can maintain order and stability in a country with a violent past.
With nearly a year to go until the elections, whether ultimately the fear of instability and rising violence will prevail over anger about the government’s inaction and empty promises is too early to determine. But as President Duque realizes this is unlikely to turn his favorability rating in time for the elections, he may feel inclined to employ more radical anti-democratic measures against protesters. Some of his Cabinet members suggest that he should institute emergency measures giving him greater powers to restore order.
The international community should closely monitor events in Colombia. International solidarity will be needed to protect the rights of protesters.
And when the United Nations Security Council meeting that began this week discusses the situation in Colombia, leaders must put forward solutions that hold the Colombian police and state authorities accountable for the excessive use of force and resulting civilian abductions and deaths. In May, fifty US lawmakers called for a halt to weapons sales to the Colombian national police. This is a step in the right direction.
But more needs to be done. If unequal economic recoveries from the COVID-19 pandemic continue to push people into hardship across the developing world, the path for countries like Colombia will be rocky in the years to come. Downgraded by credit rating institutions, Colombia has lost its status as a reliable investment destination on a continent plagued by defaults. New tax reform is currently on the way to legislation.
With a government that has lost trust in its goodwill and competence to pull Colombia out of its current crises, the 2022 elections will be decisive.
“Colombia’s future is dependent on next year’s elections. We need a different congress with real people in power that work to bring our country forward,” said Diego. “If Centro Democrático continues to stay in power, Colombia will move backward. Whether Petro has the power to unite our country, I am doubtful. What Colombia needs is competence, people with the capacity to unite our country again.”
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=47905"><span class="small">Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website</span></a>
Friday, 16 July 2021 13:00
Keillor writes: "The books about No. 45 are coming out and one says he was deranged and another says that his own people feared for the country, neither of which I doubt for a minute, but I'm not up for reliving those years."
Garrison Keillor. (photo: MPR)
What We Crave, Above All, Is What's Real
By Garrison Keillor, Garrison Keillor's Website
16 July 21
he books about No. 45 are coming out and one says he was deranged and another says that his own people feared for the country, neither of which I doubt for a minute, but I’m not up for reliving those years for the same reason I don’t plan to spend January in Norway: been there, done it, life is short, no need for reruns.
The January in Norway is a story my wife tells so much better than I can. I was sick with the flu in a hotel room in the town of Tromsø above the Arctic Circle; she was the one who went dogsledding and ice fishing in the arctic twilight in a cold rain and the sun never shone and the food was gruesome and everyone worked hard to be upbeat and detached from reality, and now when she recites the miseries of that week, people laugh like crazy, whereas I was in bed, mostly sleeping. The trip was my brilliant idea and I missed out on it and her telling of the story is brilliant, epic but brisk.
We have no plans to return to Tromsø. It has served its usefulness as an example of how unfounded enthusiasm combined with loose cash can lead to a dark place.
I experienced vast self-confidence in my twenties, which may have been a necessity for an aspiring writer. I hung out with other young writers, hoping to absorb talent by proximity, same as you’d catch the flu. We met at the Mixers bar near campus and I drank Scotch because that seemed like the right liquor for the writer I wanted to be. And I smoked unfiltered Luckies. What we knew about writers was that they were prodigious drinkers. Eight or ten of us crammed into a big booth and drank while disparaging any and all successful living writers from Bellow, Updike, and Roth on down. The combination of alcohol and disdain boosted our confidence. I imagine there are bands of writers doing the very same thing today. I don’t want to join them, any more than I long for Tromsø in January or want to read a book about Mr. Yesterday.
What I long for is to go back to last Sunday when I had planned to read to my daughter a long passage I wrote about her birth and childhood and how she developed into a big personality, loving, jokey, reading other people’s feelings, keen about details, but events intervened, and then Monday was furiously busy, moving her into a new apartment in a distant city, and then suddenly it was time to go and we hugged and she burst into tears and so did I. I’m not a weepy person. There have been many farewell moments when I should’ve wept and did not. What moved me was the depth of her love for her mother and me, the emptiness of the apartment, the strangeness of the city. “You’ll be fine,” her mother said. My daughter hugged me and wiped her nose on my black T-shirt, which amused her and so she did it again. I said, “Is it snot? No, it’s not.” She laughed. I walked to the door and on the way I passed gas and she laughed harder and then resumed weeping. I went out the door, tears running down my cheeks.
We drove away in grievous silence, my wife at the wheel. I searched the map on my phone for a Dairy Queen, thinking that I deserved a Butterfinger Blizzard but there were none nearby. Since Monday we’ve gotten reassuring texts from her that she’s doing well but I’m still miserable. This is an experience I share with millions of other parents. Who ever realized that simple concupiscence could lead to so many interesting stories and such deep feeling? I think of her on a swing, swinging as high as she could, laughing in the moment of weightlessness on the upswing. I think of her tonsillectomy where I gently, over her protests, placed the gas mask on her and held it until she sagged and closed her eyes, and afterward, seeing me in the hall, she stuck out her tongue. I think of how hard she laughed on the raft ride when a wave sloshed me and it looked like I’d wet my pants. I miss her. She’s entitled to independence, we being mortal and all, but I cherish the moment, our arms around each other, weeping. Did I say I miss her? I do.
It's Time to Make Washington, DC a State Already, Dammit!
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=52606"><span class="small">Greg Walters, VICE</span></a>
Friday, 16 July 2021 12:59
Walters writes: "There are about 700,000 Americans living in the continental U.S. who, by law, have to do what the rest of the country tells them. And they're all neighbors, living in Washington, D.C."
Residents of D.C. rally for statehood near the Capitol in Washington on March 22, 2021. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
It's Time to Make Washington, DC a State Already, Dammit!
By Greg Walters, VICE
16 July 21
What the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has to do with D.C. statehood.
here are about 700,000 Americans living in the continental U.S. who, by law, have to do what the rest of the country tells them. And they’re all neighbors, living in Washington, D.C.
Almost 90 percent of them say they want D.C. to become the 51st state, and momentum has never been higher among Congressional Democrats to make that happen. But unified opposition among Republicans, who argue D.C. statehood is really just a power grab in the Senate, means their efforts appear doomed for the foreseeable future.
The upshot is that a population bigger than either Wyoming or Vermont effectively doesn’t get a vote in Congress, because they live in a place that was specially established as a federal district over 200 years ago. And what’s more, members of Congress from other states can get together to override local D.C. politicians’ plans.
This week, VICE News’ video series, The Couch Report, breaks down what D.C.’s lack of statehood means for the people who live there, from drug policy to Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021.
RSN: 30 Ways Trump-Fascists' Assault on Democracy Threatens Us All
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=6004"><span class="small">Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News</span></a>
Friday, 16 July 2021 12:25
Wasserman writes: "The Trump Death Cult has fired up a brutal juggernaut meant to defeat American democracy once and forever."
Trump supporters. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
30 Ways Trump-Fascists' Assault on Democracy Threatens Us All
By Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
16 July 21
he Trump Death Cult has fired up a brutal juggernaut meant to defeat American democracy once and forever.
If we do not dismantle it, this nation will never know another real election.
Joe Biden has finally spoken about how serious this is. But history tells us we cannot rely on the corporate Democrats to bring us a fair electoral process.
The real movement to win an actual democracy must come from the grassroots. Here is some of what we face:
The ultimate battle is demographic, religious, and cultural, thus running as deep as it gets.
The evangelical/Trumpist upsurge is based on those who identify as straight white male Christian “patriots” reacting in terror to a rapidly transforming population led by a Millennial/Zoomer tsunami of multi-cultural, multi-racial diversity that the old guard simply can’t handle.
Thus the fight takes on an apocalyptic dimension that goes far beyond just winning an election or two.
The old demographic has built a blitzkrieg assault machine that stretches from the courts to the precincts to the militias in a desperate all-out attempt to disenfranchise the future, bringing with it levels of fear and ferocity that must not be underestimated.
Fomenting the “Big Lie” of a stolen 2020 election, Trump mimicks Hitlerian Nazis who said they’d won World War I, but were “stabbed in the back” – the Dolchstosslegende – by Jews and liberals.
With an iron grip on the Supreme Court and key legislatures, the GOP assault on democracy has leapt to a truly menacing level, quite capable of installing a fascist autocracy that will be very hard to root out.
Gerrymandered state legislatures, captured by Koch-sponsored Republicans in the 2010 RedMap Coup, stand in fascist unison as a rump junta.
Control of the swing state legislatures was engineered in 2010 by Karl Rove and his Koch-paid cohorts to buy key legislatures and thus control the gerrymandering that has guaranteed their state-based strongholds – and vast advantages in the US House – ever since.
The Trump-fascists may have the ability to re-take the US House in 2022 just through gerrymandering.
In 2010, the corporate Obama Democrats said virtually nothing about the de facto coup that had just taken place.
Obama did quip that he’d just taken a “shellacking,” while proceeding to surrender to the GOP roughly a thousand elected offices.
Key victories against gerrymandering – installing transparent multi-partisan districting commissions in California 2008/2010, and in Michigan 2018 – involved strong support from Arnold Schwarzenegger, and were strongly opposed in California by Nancy Pelosi and other corporate Democrats.
With control of the state legislatures, the GOP has inherited the ability to overturn future presidential elections, as they nearly did in 2020.
Only paper ballots, demanded by election protection activists since Ohio 2004, provided incontrovertible proof that Trump had been defeated in 2020.
Had the 2020 election been conducted primarily on electronic touchscreen machines, Donald Trump would have easily won.
GOP control of swing state legislatures has given them the ability to propose hundreds of bills – many of them already passed into law – aimed at disenfranchising tens of millions of non-millionaire citizens of youth and color.
Anti-democracy efforts against vote-by-mail, paper ballots, sufficient precincts, food and water for those stuck in line, early voting, same-day registration, souls to the polls, help bringing ballots to the polls, provisional ballots, sufficient times to vote – and efforts to establish street address requirements, disenfranchise people voting in neighboring precincts, eliminate drop boxes, eliminate drive-through voting, require photo ID, and much more – have been rammed through gerrymandered state legislatures with alarming ease.
Assaults on the ability of citizens to make changes by referendum have escalated.
Stripping of supervisory electoral powers from duly-elected state officials and governors has escalated in gerrymandered Republican states.
Corporate Democrats have been hesitant to guarantee full enfranchisement of citizens of youth and color for fear of losing primaries to progressives like Bernie Sanders, Ohio’s Nina Turner, and others.
The 6-3 anti-democracy majority on the US Supreme Court has certified its support for fascist assaults on the rights of citizens of youth and color to vote.
Like Chief Justice William Rehnquist before him, Chief Justice John Roberts has built his career around suppressing the right of non-millionaire citizens of youth and color to vote, and he continues to work to make sure that happens.
The Electoral College, originally designed to protect small states and slaveowners, today tilts heavily toward rural Republicans, making it likely another Republican could soon win the White House with a minority of the popular vote.
The fifty Republican senators in today’s Upper House represent 42 million fewer citizens than do the fifty Democrats.
The idea that the filibuster provides some kind of “bi-partisan balance” thus becomes ludicrous in light of the GOP’s inherent hyper-representation.
In Arizona and elsewhere, absurd fake “recounts” have been staged to question Trump’s loss, with the primary purpose of sabotaging this and future elections.
The denial of statehood for the District of Columbia disenfranchises more than 700,000 citizens – more than inhabit Vermont or Wyoming – denying the Democrats two Senate seats and a House seat, plus guaranteeing DC has no governor to call out the National Guard when the next fascist assault is launched at the Capitol.
Trump Fascists have begun running for Secretary of State positions, which would allow them to degrade, manipulate, and steal upcoming elections.
Trump Fascists are pushing for the ability of partisan thugs to intimidate voters and election officials without recourse in all federal, state, and local elections.
Fascist legislatures are stripping powers from elected state and local election boards and giving them to gerrymandered legislatures meaning to guarantee future Republican victories no matter what the true vote count.
The Omnibus FOR THE PEOPLE election reform bill has been stalled by the filibuster, denying the public the ability to rectify many of the worst abuses aimed at our democracy.
The JOHN LEWIS Voting Rights Act has also been stalled by the filibuster, denying the Department of Justice the ability to counteract obvious disenfranchisement abuses on the state level.
The power of money to derange our elections remains unchecked due to the Supreme Court’s Citizen United and other decisions overturning public attempts to limit the ability of rich corporations to buy what’s left of our democracy.
The collective danger of all the above – and there is more – cannot be overstated. It is clear that the American public’s desire for a diverse, tolerant, truly democratic system is shared by a majority of the nation.
It’s also clear that the danger of a truly fascist coup has never been greater.
To find out what you can do, join our Monday Grassroots Emergency Election Protection (GREEP) zoom calls at 5 p.m. Eastern and check out The Strip & Flip Disaster of America’s Stolen Elections by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman, now being read on the air by Thom Hartmann.
Remember that the election protection movement was scorned and ridiculed for years, before now becoming absolutely critical to the future of our nation.
Please join us!!!
Harvey Wasserman’s People’s Spiral of US History is at www.solartopia.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
FOCUS | This Was Cultural Genocide by an Occupying Force: The United States
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
Friday, 16 July 2021 11:46
Pierce writes: "History, and how to tell the truth about it, and why you shouldn't hide it, or bury it, or lie about it, is all over the news right now."
'We want our children home no matter how long it takes,' said U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who in June announced a nationwide investigation into the boarding schools that attempted to assimilate Indigenous children into white society. (photo: Library of Congress)
This Was Cultural Genocide by an Occupying Force: The United States
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
16 July 21
But this week brought a moment of historical redemption.
istory, and how to tell the truth about it, and why you shouldn’t hide it, or bury it, or lie about it, is all over the news right now. The removal of Confederate statues and the reconsideration of how Reconstruction was handled and, especially, how it ended, and the inevitable backlash through which Critical Race Theory has become the all-purpose storage bin for the parts of history that make white people nervous, all represent a newish and intense front in our idiotic culture wars. I have a certain interest because I am Irish American, and I know how easily the identity of a people and a culture can be destroyed by an occupying force. All of which makes the story of how some Indigenous Americans fought to bring home their dead children to their ancestral lands a crucial story this week. From the AP (via Indian Country Today):
The handoff at a graveyard on the grounds of the U.S. Army's Carlisle Barracks was part of the fourth set of transfers to take place since 2017. The remains of an Alaskan Aleut child were returned to her tribe earlier this summer.
“We want our children home no matter how long it takes,” said U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who in June announced a nationwide investigation into the boarding schools that attempted to assimilate Indigenous children into white society.
Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, said at the event that “forced assimilation practices" stripped away the children's clothing, their language and their culture. She said the government aims to locate the schools and burial sites and identify the names and tribal affiliations of children from the boarding schools around the country.
Have we mentioned what a profound difference having an indigenous woman as Secretary of the Interior has been?
The Carlisle school, founded by an Army officer, took drastic steps to separate Native American students from their culture, including cutting their braids, dressing them in military-style uniforms and punishing them for speaking their native languages. They were forced to adopt European names.
(This happened in Ireland, too, and the process was brilliantly lampooned by Flann O’Brien in his novel, An Beal Bocht—"The Poor Mouth." The novel’s hero, one Bonaparte O’Coonassa, is shipped off to school. The schoolmaster asks his name and, when Bonaparte runs down his lengthy Gaelic patronymic, the schoolmaster hits him in the head with an oar and screams, “Yer nam is Jams O’Donnell!” Bonaparte soon learns that every boy in the class is called Jams O’Donnell.)
Canada is currently embroiled in a huge story involving the discovery of the unmarked graves of thousands of Indigenous children who were shipped to that country’s residential schools, many of which were run by Catholic clergy. Late in the 19th century, this particular form of cultural (and actual) genocide was being practiced down here, too. General Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the school at Carlisle, made the goal of these institutions quite plain:
"A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”
Which makes the events of the past week all the more touching and beautiful.
Ione Quigley, the tribe’s historic preservation officer, recounted how she attended the disinterment earlier this week and used red ochre to prepare the remains in a traditional way. “We got everything done as respectfully and honorably as possible,” Quigley said. Russell Eagle Bear, a Rosebud Sioux tribal council representative, said a lodge was being prepared for a Friday ceremony at a Missouri River landing near Sioux City where children boarded a steamboat for the journey to the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School…
Tribal officials said that when the remains arrive in South Dakota, some will be buried in a veterans’ cemetery and others are destined for family graveyards. “We're here today and we are going to take our children home,” Eagle Bear said to about 100 attendees on Wednesday. “We have a big homecoming on the other end.”
To which we can only add, borrowing from another language and another culture that survived despite attempts to stamp it out: Cead mile failte. A hundred thousand welcomes home to you.
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eginning earlier this summer, Colombia was rocked by 
he books about No. 45 are coming out and one says he was deranged and another says that his own people feared for the country, neither of which I doubt for a minute, but I’m not up for reliving those years for the same reason I don’t plan to spend January in Norway: been there, done it, life is short, no need for reruns.
istory, and how to tell the truth about it, and why you shouldn’t hide it, or bury it, or lie about it, is all over the news right now. The removal of Confederate statues and the reconsideration of how Reconstruction was handled and, especially, how it ended, and the inevitable backlash through which Critical Race Theory has become the all-purpose storage bin for the parts of history that make white people nervous, all represent a newish and intense front in our idiotic culture wars. I have a certain interest because I am Irish American, and I know how easily the identity of a people and a culture can be destroyed by an occupying force. All of which makes the story of how some Indigenous Americans fought to bring home their dead children to their ancestral lands a crucial story this week. From the AP (via 
