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Images of homes that collapsed under mudslides or falling trees, waterlogged farms, and debris-filled roads drove home (yes, home!) to me recently the impact of Hurricane Helene on rural areas in the southeastern United States. That hurricane and the no-less-devastating Hurricane Milton that followed it only exacerbated already existing underlying problems for rural America. Those would include federal insurance programs that prioritize rising sea levels over flooding from heavy rainfall, deepening poverty, and unequal access to private home insurance — issues, in other words, faced by poor inland farming communities. And for millions of rural Americans impacted by Helene, don’t forget limited access to healthcare services, widespread electricity outages, and of course, difficulty getting to the ballot box. Case in... Read more

In August, climate activist and cellist John Mark Rozendaal was arrested and charged with criminal contempt for playing a few minutes of Bach outside Citibank’s headquarters in New York City. Rozendaal, 63, was prominent in the “Summer of Heat on Wall Street” campaign that targeted Citibank for its prolific financing of fossil-fuel projects. He and a co-defendant now face up to seven years of imprisonment if convicted. Meanwhile in Atlanta, more than 50 justice and environmental activists are awaiting trial on domestic terrorism and other charges arising from their years-long defense of the city’s South River Forest against the construction of an 85-acre police training center there. They are being prosecuted under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) law.... Read more

“War is not healthy for children and other living things,” reads a poster titled “Primer” created by the late artist Lorraine Schneider for an art show at New York’s Pratt Institute in 1965. Printed in childlike lowercase letters, the words interspersed between the leaves of a simply rendered sunflower, it was an early response to America’s war in Vietnam. “She just wanted to make something that nobody could argue with,” recalled Schneider’s youngest daughter, Elisa Kleven, in an article published earlier this year. Six decades later, Schneider’s hypothesis has consistently been borne out. According to Save the Children, about 468 million children — about one of every six young people on this planet — live in areas affected by armed... Read more

He’s the man of the hour (and you can choose your hour), win, lose, or draw. I mean, who can deny it? Certainly not the crowd at his debate with Kamala Harris that, as he reminded us recently, absolutely “went crazy” over what he had to say. (And it couldn’t matter less that the event had no live audience whatsoever.) In a sense, he isn’t wrong. After all, it’s still all too possible that, in a couple of weeks, he could once again be elected — yes! — president of the United States. Indeed, it’s as yet unclear whether American voters will decline The Donald, but what is increasingly clear — there can’t be a doubt on the subject —... Read more

Source: The Empire Is Going Down appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

It was William Shakespeare who, in Troilus and Cressida, wrote, “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” And yet, in the polarized news cycle since Hurricane Helene ravaged the southeastern United States and the hurricanes have kept coming, we’ve heard a tale not of shared humanity, but of ruin, discord, and political polarization. Hundreds are dead from that storm — the deadliest to hit the mainland U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — hundreds more are missing, and hundreds of thousands of residences are still without power or clean water. And in addition to the staggering human loss and physical damage, a hurricane of misinformation and division has continued to pummel the region. There’s Elon Musk’s politicized deployment... Read more

While the world looks on with trepidation at regional wars in Israel and Ukraine, a far more dangerous global crisis is quietly building at the other end of Eurasia, along an island chain that has served as the front line for America’s national defense for endless decades. Just as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revitalized the NATO alliance, so China’s increasingly aggressive behavior and a sustained U.S. military build-up in the region have strengthened Washington’s position on the Pacific littoral, bringing several wavering allies back into the Western fold. Yet such seeming strength contains both a heightened risk of great power conflict and possible political pressures that could fracture America’s Asia-Pacific alliance relatively soon. Recent events illustrate the rising tensions... Read more

Considered Angola’s crown jewel by many, Lobito is a colorful port city on the country’s scenic Atlantic coast where a nearly five-kilometer strip of land creates a natural harbor. Its white sand beaches, vibrant blue waters, and mild tropical climate have made Lobito a tourist destination in recent years. Yet under its shiny new facade is a history fraught with colonial violence and exploitation. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to lay claim to Angola in the late sixteenth century. For nearly four centuries, they didn’t relent until a bloody, 27-year civil war with anticolonial guerillas (aided by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces) and bolstered by a leftist coup in distant Lisbon, Portugal’s capital, overthrew that colonial regime in 1974.... Read more

Source: The Cash Will Soon Flow appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

No one wants a nuclear reactor in their backyard. It’s an eyesore and a health hazard, not to mention the hit to your property values. And don’t forget the existential danger. One small miscalculation and boom, there goes the neighborhood! In the 1970s, in the southwest corner of Germany, the tiny community of Wyhl was bracing for the construction of just such a nuclear reactor in its backyard. Something even worse loomed on the horizon: a vast industrial zone with new chemical plants and eight nuclear energy complexes that would transform the entire region around that town and stretch into nearby France and Switzerland. The governments of the three countries and the energy industry were all behind the project. Even... Read more

Source: Ask (Not) What You Can Do for Your Planet appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

After Joe Biden was shuffled off stage on trumped-up charges of senility, I started thinking seriously about the weaponization of old age in our world. Who gets credit for old age and who gets the boot? At 86, I share that affliction, pervasive among the richest, healthiest, and/or luckiest of us, who manage to hang around the longest. Donald Trump is, of course, in this same group, although much of America seems to be in selective denial about his diminishing capabilities. He was crushed recently in The Great Debate yet is generally given something of a mulligan for hubris, craziness, and unwillingness to prepare. But face it, unlike Joe B, he was simply too old to cut the mustard. It’s... Read more

With the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel approaching, the death toll in Gaza climbing to more than 41,500, and Israel inflicting ever more extreme violence on the West Bank and now on Lebanon as well, something very different happened recently in a poky classroom at Columbia University. Two young men, one Palestinian and one Israeli, both of whom had lost people they deeply loved to the conflict, came to speak not about fear and anger, revenge or oppression, but about reconciliation, friendship, and peace. One of them was Arab Aramin, a 30-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem whose little sister, Abir, had been shot and killed in front of her school by an Israeli soldier. She was 10 years old. The other was Yonatan Zeigen,... Read more