Dissent

(Code Pink) – On June 1, President Trump threatened to deploy active-duty U.S. military forces against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters in cities across America. Trump and state governors eventually deployed at least 17,000 National Guard troops across the country. In the nation’s capital, Trump deployed nine Blackhawk assault helicopters, thousands of National Guard troops […]

Democracy

The Other Looting: We’ve Just witnessed a Nationwide Police Riot, Fueled by Trump’s talk of “Terrorists”

Dan Dinello

Reacting to Protests Against Brutality and Racism, the Police Try to Crush Dissent by Brutally Beating, Gassing, and Shooting Protesters

Democracy

The 2020 uprisings, unprecedented in scope, join a long river of struggle in America

The Conversation

By Matthew Countryman | – The river was the metaphor that best captured “the long, continuous movement” of the black freedom struggle for theologian, historian and civil rights activist Vincent Harding. Harding, who had served as a speechwriter for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote in his groundbreaking 1981 study of African-American history, “There is […]

Dissent

Light ‘Em Up! How America’s Forever Wars came to our Streets

William J. Astore

(Tomdispatch.com) – From their front porches, regular citizens watched a cordon of cops sweep down their peaceful street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rankled at being filmed, the cops exceeded their authority and demanded that people go inside their houses. When some of them didn’t obey quickly enough, the order — one heard so many times in […]

Democracy

George Floyd and Mohamed Bouazizi: What Americans can Learn from Tunisia’s Arab Spring

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In mid-December, 2010 in the small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, a small drama unfolded that would change the world, and certainly would change Tunisia. Tareq Mohammed Bouazizi, a street peddler who had just bought $200 worth of produce to sell off a cart, was harassed by police for not […]

Authoritarianism

The rest of the world sees uprisings, not riots, in Trump’s US

Reese Erlich

(48hills.org) – One of Germany’s largest dailies ran the headline “This killer cop set America ablaze,” with a photo of the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd. Protests in the United States, the article reported, looked like “scenes out of a civil war.” Bettina Gaus, political correspondent for the Berlin daily Die Tagezeitung, tells […]

Dissent

Tear Gas Is Way More Dangerous Than Police Let On — Especially During the Coronavirus Pandemic

ProPublica

by Lisa Song (ProPublica) – When Amira Chowdhury joined a protest in Philadelphia against police violence on Monday, she wore a mask to protect herself and others against the coronavirus. But when officers launched tear gas into the crowd, Chowdhury pulled off her mask as she gasped for air. “I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I […]

Dissent

In Bid to Erase Arab Spring from History, Egyptian Junta Arrests Legendary Blogger Wael Abbas

Committee to Protect Journalists

Abbas was arrested on accusations of “spreading false news” and “joining a banned group”

censorship

Israel to Deny Benefits for Pro-Boycott Citizens, Local Groups

contributors

TeleSur | – – The government will create a blacklist for local individuals and groups known to support the pro-Palestinian boycott movement against Israel. Israel is ramping up its crackdown on the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as the government plans a blacklist for citizens and companies in Israel that support the movement to […]