Month: Jul 2023

from thefreeonline on 8th July 2023 by Jill Dennison at Filosofa’s Word

Oklahoma’s Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law a bill prohibiting the teaching of race in any way, shape, or form.

Would someone please tell me how the Sam Hell it is possible to teach about the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 without saying that it had anything to do with race or racism??? 

That’s like … like … telling a teacher to teach about the differences between elephants and squirrels without mentioning size! 

It’s like teaching about oceans without mentioning water or the desert without mentioning sand!!!

For those who may not be familiar with the Tulsa Race Massacre, or those who may just want a bit of a refresher, please take just a minute or two to read my post from the 100^th anniversary of the events in Tulsa in 1921. 

An entire thriving community populated by Black people was destroyed by white people because a Black man may have accidentally stepped on a white woman’s toes in an elevator! 

300 people were killed, 10,000 left homeless, and an entire 35 square block community was completely destroyed over a small, irrelevant accident!  It was nothing … NOTHING BUT PURE RACISM!!!

Yesterday it was reported that Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction and previously State Secretary of Education, has given schools ‘permission’ to teach about the Tulsa Race Massacre, but only so long as teachers don’t actually acknowledge that the white supremacist attack was about race.  WTF???  How, then, are they supposed to teach about it at all, for it was ONLY about race and nothing more!  The Tulsa Race Massacre happened in 1921, but today, 102 years later, we are just as racist, just as backward as people were then!!!

In May 2021, the month of the centennial anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, Oklahoma’s Governor Kevin Stitt signed into law a bill prohibiting the teaching of race in any way, shape, or form.

“As governor, I firmly believe that not one cent of taxpayer money should be used to define and divide young Oklahomans about their race or sex. That is what this bill upholds for public education.”

So … I wonder how history teachers are supposed to teach about the Civil War?  Do they say it was a fight over the price of cotton, rather than southerners holding or “owning” Black people as slaves to do the heavy lifting?

Continue reading “To Teach Without Teaching: Tulsa Race Massacre: bigotry and racism in the U.S.”

from thefreeonline on 7th July 2023 by South Front

Ukrainian reserve assault groups, thrown forward repeatedly with hardly any armoured support, were again spotted in advance by Russian reconnaissance UAVs, and massacred by heavy Russian fire.

According to the reports from the front, the Ukrainian military likely began another wave of massive offensive on the southern front lines.

The local authorities confirmed that on the evening of July 6, Ukrainian forces sharply increased their operations on a wide front of up to 30 kilometers in the Zaporozhie region.

In the area of Orehov the Ukrainian Army launched attacks on Russian positions near Nesteryanka and Kopani to the south and Novofedorovka, Verbovoe to the southeast.

The attacks are carried out by small assault groups of reserve units that were not previously involved in operations.

All Ukrainian attacks thus far have resulted in no victories at the cost of heavy losses.

To the west, Ukrainian units continue constant attacks near the village of Pyatikhatki, where they have already lost dozens of units of military equipment while achieving no gains on the ground.

There, the Ukrainian command uses the same tactics of constant attacks by small assault groups in an attempt to exhaust the Russian defense.

According to local reports, up to five waves of attacks were launched from Pyatikhatki towards Zherebyanki over the past day. After intense artillery shelling, troops of the 128^th mountain assault brigade of the Ukrainian army went on the offensive.

The first four waves were mainly stopped by Russian minefields and dispersed by artillery fire.

By the evening, the fifth and largest assault began. It reportedly involved up to 200 fighters that were covered by Ukrainian artillery but were thrown into battle without almost any armored vehicles.

Ukrainian assault groups were spotted in advance by Russian reconnaissance UAVs and destroyed by Russian fire.

In the Kherson region, the Ukrainian military has already reportedly lost several hundred fighters under the Antonovsky Bridge, (still not totally destroyed) where they have gained a stronghold but failed to develop their success and advance.

The Ukrainian grouping on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River is constantly shelled by Russian artillery, as well as TOS-1 MLRS utilizing thermobaric warheads, FAB bombs, and even Iskander missiles.

Despite heavy losses, the Ukrainian military command is again preparing new forces to throw them on Russian positions. After a months of futile bloody offensive operations, Kiev urgently needs to show some victories on the battlefield to please its Western patrons.

In recent weeks, the Ukrainian military has been pulling reserves up to the southern frontlines, transferring them closer to the front by small parts under the cover of night.

New York Post / Ukraine losing large number of troops as it boasts of Russian casualties. ‘Over 300,ooo Ukrainian military killed…’

These are units that did not take part in the first stage of the offensive, including the so-called “Offensive Guard”.

The recent assault operations were carried out by Ukrainian infantry without almost any armored vehicle support, which signals that despite large supplies from NATO, the Ukrainian Army already suffers from a lack of heavy military equipment and is saving it for the upcoming escalation.

All of this while losses in manpower continue to grow.

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Tags:donbass, kherson, russia, ukraine, Zaporozhye

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from thefreeonline on 8th July, 2023 by banned/World News

Washington could approve the controversial shipment as early as this week, the outlet reported.

Most EU and NATO countries (including Germany and UK but not Poland) have signed and ratified the International Treaty (wikipedia) banning obscene and inhuman Cluster Munitions . Yet all seem happy for their US rulers to unload their surplus Cluster Bombs, condemning ethnic Russian Ukrainian civilians for decades to come.

CIA advised Human Rights Watch (HRW) hides Ukraine War Crimes of Civilians with Butterfly Mines March 28, 2023

111 Countries have signed and ratified the Treaty banning the horrendous weapons, including most NATO and EU countries

Showing zero respect as usual for its vassal NATO members Washington may decide unilaterally to send controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine this week, CBS News reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US officials. Kiev and its backers in the US have been urging such a move for months.

Russian Journalist Zemfira Suleymanova, born in 1997 Killed By ‘Butterfly’ Mine In Donbas – Zenger News Zemfira was blown up by a mine along with the driver and died in Donbas in Ukraine on Monday, Aug, 15, 2022.

In a rare break with US hegemony German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed Berlin’s opposition to delivering cluster munitions to Ukraine.

I have followed the media reports. For us, as a state party, the Oslo agreement applies,” she told journalists, when asked about US plans.

The minister was referring to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which was signed by 111 countries in the Norwegian capital in 2008 and bans this type of weapons, with a handful of exceptions.

FILE PHOTO: Unexploded bomblets from a cluster weapon ©  Onur Coban / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Germany is one of the signatories, but the US is not. Cluster weapons leave behind unexploded bomblets that maim or kill civilians, especially children, years after deployment.

Cluster weapons, which are subject to the international treaty, spread dozens of small bomblets over a large area. The Pentagon then claimed its stockpiles have “a lower dud rate” – the proportion of bomblets that fail to explode.

Some of those submunitions fail to detonate and remain a hazard for decades afterwards, especially to small children, who may find and pick them up without realizing the danger.

Over 100 countries, including most NATO members, even Lithuania, have signed the convention banning this type of arms, however the US, Ukraine and Russia have not.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the US run military bloc “does not have a position” on such weapons, even though the US is due to send them.

The particular artillery shells Kiev is requesting from the Pentagon are the dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, or DPICM, which the US stockpiled in large quantities during the Cold War.

US Congress terrorists urge Biden to send cluster bombs to Kiev – media

The Pentagon has assessed that Kiev could greatly benefit from such weapons in their fight against Russia. Deputy assistant secretary of defense Laura Cooper cited “existing congressional restrictions” and “concerns about allied unity” as standing in the way of deliveries during a US House subcommittee last month.

Members of the congressional Helsinki Commission urged the White House to overcome those obstacles, arguing in a letter that Ukraine would put the weapons “to their intended use” to “counter Russia’s numerical and material superiority.”

“Let us use this untapped, vast arsenal in service of Ukrainian victory, and reclaiming Europe’s peace,” the message said.

Ukraine, 2014 Human Rights Watch reported that “Ukrainian

government forces used cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city in early October 2014.” Also “circumstances indicate that anti-government forces might also have been responsible for the use of cluster munitions”.^[65]

Critics of the expected US move, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), disputed the notion that Kiev would be able to mitigate harm to civilians by carefully selecting targets.

The US government should not be providing cluster munitions to any country due to the foreseeable and lasting harm to civilians from these weapons,” Mary Wareham, the advocacy director of the Arms Division of HRW said.

Kiev launched its long-promised counteroffensive against Russia last month, but has failed to achieve any significant territorial gains.

Ukrainian officials, including President Vladimir Zelensky, have blamed slow delivery of Western arms for the lackluster results, claiming that it gave their opponent time to prepare defenses.

The US based Human Rights Watch had reported the use of cluster munitions by the Russian Armed Forces during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. HRMMU reported 16 allegations that Russian armed forces used cluster munitions in populated areas, resulting in civilian casualties and other damage.^[76]

Russia always denied their use, pointing to the ongoing 10 year series of False Flag and terrorist attacks from Ukraine.

Continue reading “US to send deadly Cluster Bombs against Russia despite Germany, UK and ‘NATO majority’ banning their use”

The term is the lens through which the blurry rage of MAGA comes into focus.

from thefreeonline by Noah Lanard at Mother Jones

The same day Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Daniel Penny with manslaughter for choking to death Jordan Neely—a homeless man who’d been acting in a way Penny perceived as threatening—Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) recorded a podcast.:

Elites, he told listeners, were making the common man fearful of defending himself while allowing criminals to roam free. The congressman had a name for this inversion of justice: “anarcho-tyranny.”

For a certain kind of right-wing shitposter with intellectual pretensions (Tim Pool, Mike Cernovich, the New York Young Republican Club) invoking the specter of anarcho-tyranny was obligatory after Penny’s arrest.

The term lent an academic gloss to a gut reaction.

Anarcho-tyranny has become a favorite expression for proponents of a new populism on the right. Tucker Carlson has used it to explain everything from the prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse to Democrats’ nonchalant reaction to classified documents at the Penn Biden Center.

A few weeks before Fox News fired him, Carlson mused, “It does seem like anarcho-tyranny is one of these ideas, you know, that some political philosopher thought up a long time ago.”

Well, no. The expression belongs to Sam Francis—the late paleoconservative columnist whose disgust with establishment Republicans, managerial elites (of any party), and the idea of a majority-minority America has led him to be widely cited by intellectuals of the MAGA movement.

Francis’ ideawas not that anarcho- tyranny was an age-old problem, but rather that it was the product of an “entirely new form of government” that was “unique in human history.”

In a 1994 article, Francis proclaimed that a first-of-its-kind “Hegelian synthesis” had been created by the upper class as the 20th century closed.

This perversion forced the aggrieved masses to live under both anarchy and tyranny at once. In North Carolina, he explained, a “law-abiding citizen” was arrested as part of a media stunt to improve seatbelt enforcement even as violent criminals were being let out of state prisons on parole.

(Francis did not mention that the prison releases resulted from a state law enacted in 1987 to prevent extreme overcrowding caused by record arrest numbers.)

Here, he suggested, was a government imposing on us while allowing them to do as they pleased.

And the identities of us and them were clear: Francis wrote from a home office that was once Robert E. Lee’s childhood bedroom.

He was pushed out of the right-wing Washington Times in 1995 for, essentially, being too bigoted.

He obsessed over any restrictions that could touch a middle-class white person: speed limits, the tax code, gun laws, and even child porn statutes.

But he often ignored other oppressions enforced by the state: slavery, Jim Crow, and generations of deliberate economic dispossession.

Francis’ anarcho-tyranny is the lens through which the blurry rage of MAGA comes into focus.

When Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) complains about a “lunatic” in New York getting away with harassing a white family as Donald Trump is hounded over a hush-money case, it can seem like an age-old tale of liberal hypocrisy.

But as Carlson made clear earlier this year, the New Right sees progressive elites as engaged in something far more sinister.

“What they’re describing is a caste system,” Carlson explained, “where they can do what they want, and you are subject to the minutiae of their legal code. It’s called anarcho-tyranny.”

Francis did have a solution. Order could be restored, he argued, not by police but via a return to something else: frontier vigilantism.

He even had a modern example of this justified resistance: Bernhard Goetz, the man who shot four Black teenagers on the subway in 1984 after one of them reportedly said, “Give me 5 dollars.”

Francis hailed the subway vigilante for “picking off” the “hoodlums.” (All of the kids survived, though one was paralyzed.) “I wanted to kill those guys,”.

Goetz confessed. “If I had more bullets, I would have shot them all again and again.”

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from thefreeonline on 6th July, 2023 by banned/World News

Washington could approve the controversial shipment as early as this week, the outlet reported.

FILE PHOTO: Unexploded bomblets from a cluster weapon ©  Onur Coban / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Most EU and NATO countries (including Germany and UK but not Poland) have signed and ratified the International Treaty (wikipedia) banning obscene and inhuman Cluster Munitions . Yet all seem happy for their US rulers to unload their surplus Cluster Bombs, condemning ethnic Russian Ukrainian civilians for decades to come.

CIA advised Human Rights Watch (HRW) hides Ukraine War Crimes of Civilians with Butterfly Mines March 28, 2023

111 Countries have signed and ratified the Treaty banning the horrendous weapons, including most NATO and EU countries

Showing zero respect as usual for its vassal NATO members Washington may decide unilaterally to send controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine this week, CBS News reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed US officials. Kiev and its backers in the US have been urging such a move for months.

Russian Journalist Zemfira Suleymanova, born in 1997 Killed By ‘Butterfly’ Mine In Donbas – Zenger News Zemfira was blown up by a mine along with the driver and died in Donbas in Ukraine on Monday, Aug, 15, 2022.

In a rare break with US hegemony German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed Berlin’s opposition to delivering cluster munitions to Ukraine.

I have followed the media reports. For us, as a state party, the Oslo agreement applies,” she told journalists, when asked about US plans.

The minister was referring to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), which was signed by 111 countries in the Norwegian capital in 2008 and bans this type of weapons, with a handful of exceptions.

Germany is one of the signatories, but the US is not. Cluster weapons leave behind unexploded bomblets that maim or kill civilians, especially children, years after deployment.

Cluster weapons, which are subject to the international treaty, spread dozens of small bomblets over a large area. The Pentagon then claimed its stockpiles have “a lower dud rate” – the proportion of bomblets that fail to explode.

Some of those submunitions fail to detonate and remain a hazard for decades afterwards, especially to small children, who may find and pick them up without realizing the danger.

Over 100 countries, including most NATO members, even Lithuania, have signed the convention banning this type of arms, however the US, Ukraine and Russia have not.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the US run military bloc “does not have a position” on such weapons, even though the US is due to send them.

The particular artillery shells Kiev is requesting from the Pentagon are the dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, or DPICM, which the US stockpiled in large quantities during the Cold War.

US Congress terrorists urge Biden to send cluster bombs to Kiev – media

The Pentagon has assessed that Kiev could greatly benefit from such weapons in their fight against Russia. Deputy assistant secretary of defense Laura Cooper cited “existing congressional restrictions” and “concerns about allied unity” as standing in the way of deliveries during a US House subcommittee last month.

Members of the congressional Helsinki Commission urged the White House to overcome those obstacles, arguing in a letter that Ukraine would put the weapons “to their intended use” to “counter Russia’s numerical and material superiority.”

“Let us use this untapped, vast arsenal in service of Ukrainian victory, and reclaiming Europe’s peace,” the message said.

Ukraine, 2014 Human Rights Watch reported that “Ukrainian

government forces used cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city in early October 2014.” Also “circumstances indicate that anti-government forces might also have been responsible for the use of cluster munitions”.^[65]

Critics of the expected US move, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), disputed the notion that Kiev would be able to mitigate harm to civilians by carefully selecting targets.

The US government should not be providing cluster munitions to any country due to the foreseeable and lasting harm to civilians from these weapons,” Mary Wareham, the advocacy director of the Arms Division of HRW said.

Kiev launched its long-promised counteroffensive against Russia last month, but has failed to achieve any significant territorial gains.

Ukrainian officials, including President Vladimir Zelensky, have blamed slow delivery of Western arms for the lackluster results, claiming that it gave their opponent time to prepare defenses.

The US based Human Rights Watch had reported the use of cluster munitions by the Russian Armed Forces during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. HRMMU reported 16 allegations that Russian armed forces used cluster munitions in populated areas, resulting in civilian casualties and other damage.^[76]

Russia always denied their use, pointing to the ongoing 10 year series of False Flag and terrorist attacks from Ukraine.

Continue reading “US set to greenlight Cluster Bombs against Russia despite ‘NATO majority’ banning their use”

from thefreeonline on 6th July 2023 by UNICORN RIOT

Across Florida, protests have been taking place to mark an immigrant labor stoppage that lasted until at least July 3rd.

Large crowds were being reported in Orlando, Tampa, and various areas in South Florida and as far away as Chicago and California.

As SB 1718 goes into effect, the anger and economic concerns felt by many across the state forced Republican legislators to backpedal (See more about the new law in our last report.)

Despite spin from elected state officials claiming the law “has no teeth,” thousands of undocumented immigrants and mixed-status families have already fled the state, leaving job sites and agricultural fields nearly empty.

The law has attracted the attention of immigrants and their families and many have organized to create a nationwide grassroots movement to protest the racially-motivated laws.

“We didn’t know each other and before you knew it we exchanged phone numbers after we decided we had to do something about SB 1718,” said one organizer who goes by Shevet Bafanifi.

A protest against Florida’s anti-immigrant SB 1718 law on June 1, 2023.

“We’ve been running with each other since and picking up people along the way. I took an Amtrak from Arkansas to San Antonio to help feed the caravan that traveled from San Diego to Tallahassee and next thing you know, I’m in Florida headed to a huge protest.” 

Reporting on these organic protests has been a challenge and tracking their results, such as the Latino trucker boycott of the state, is hard to measure. However, the overall impacts of the combined efforts that include immigrants leaving the state are undeniable. As has been reported by residents and elected officials, Florida’s economy appears to be on the brink of a potentially devastating contraction.

The consequences of undeniable white nationalist rhetoric by conservative politicians failed to recognize the consequences of such biased legislation based on racial animus.

This has led not only the immigrant community to bring attention to the issue, but Black people, white people, and organizers from various other ethnicities to show their support for the undocumented community in Florida.

‘The immigrant population have long been ultra exploited Wage Slaves for the toxic right- wing billionaire class of Florida..’

After months of protests, organizers continue to see support grow.
“People have joined this movement from where they’re at by writing ‘Todos Somos Florida’ on their cars,” said Bafanifi.

“Many have also shown their support for HR 1511, HR 1698, and HR 2374 on their vehicles as well. This lets the immigrant community where you live know that their community supports them. I want people to show support in their own communities.”

Members of the movement have also noticed the limited support they have received from politicians in Congress, members of the media, and immigrant rights groups.

Unicorn Riot reached out to the White House and to various members of Congress about these protests and have received no response.

The muted response from the Biden administration against these allegedly unconstitutional laws has also been noted by organizers.

“I want every Latino to own their heritage and use it to find their voice,” said Bafanifi.

“We have an obligation to each other. And while everyone has a right to worship who they want, they don’t have the right to force their beliefs on us.

Religion is the backbone of so much oppression in the United States, including this anti-immigrant fascism. We’re the backbone of this country and we’re here to show the White House and Congress we mean business.”

Some images: Photos by @shevet.bafanifi and Camila Cuevas on Instagram, from a ‘Joyful Resistance Event’ in Jacksonville, Florida.

Arturo is a writer, journalist, and publisher of The Antagonist Magazine and a regular contributor at Latino Rebels and Unicorn Riot. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Please consider a tax-deductible donation to help sustain our horizontally-organized, non-profit media organization: UNICORN RIOT

The post Protests Erupt Across Florida as Senate Bill 1718 Goes Into Effect appeared first on UNICORN RIOT.

************

Big Tough Weird LGBTQ-Bashing American Psycho Guy Wants Your Vote and -What Could Go Wrong?-

by…Abby Zimet Jul 04, 2023 at Common Dreams

Whew. Latest proof the GOP is truly a malignant flaming clown car: A new, screechy, homophobic campaign ad by hateful “faulty robot from Westworld” and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis that’s either the gayest or most bonkers ad ever.

It attacks Trump as (eww) queer-friendly before pivoting to manly-man Ron doing his loud fake laugh amidst oiled bodybuilders, drag queens, disco music, Nazi music, gladiators, more bodybuilders, Brad Pitt’s Achilles and Christan Bale’s psychopath. Yeah, we’re confused too…..

read more HERE…. https://www.commondreams.org/further/big-tough-weird-lgbtq-bashing-american-psycho-guy-

ftom thefreeonline on 6th July 2023 by Stockholm Center for Freedom and Turkish Minute

A total of 136 women were murdered by men in Turkey in the first six months of this year, while 114 more died under suspicious circumstances, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported, citing the Birgün daily.

Twenty-two women were murdered by men in Turkey last month, while 27 died under suspicious circumstances, according to data from the We Will Stop Femicide Platform (Kadın Cinayetlerini Durduracağız Platformu).

Among the victims, 12 were killed in their own homes and six were murdered because they wanted to separate from their partners. 

According to Gizem Gül Kürekçi from the Left Feminist Movement, there is a clear link between the increase in femicide cases and the government’s paternalistic rhetoric.

“Before the May 14 elections, the Justice, and Development Party [AKP] government aligned with political parties that are openly sexist and that have demanded the repeal of laws that protect women. I believe such political developments are directly linked to the worrying increase in femicide we have witnessed in the last six months,” Kürekçi said.

During the recent presidential election, the People’s Alliance led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan aligned with the New Welfare Party (YRP), a small political party chaired by Fatih Erbakan. The YRP’s condition for joining the alliance was the repeal of Law No. 6284 for protection of the family and the prevention of violence against women.

The Turkish government agreed to consider repealing the law, sparking outrage among activists across the country, who said it was the only legal measure against gender-based violence.

Continue reading “Erdogan denies Women’s Rights as 22 killed by femicide in June in Turkiye with 136 so far this year”