400 years after the start of slavery, five decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and six years after the police shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, black Americans are still two and a half times more likely to be killed by police than white people. They are dying of COVID-19 at three times the rate of …
‘These Unions Dishonor the Labor Movement’: Nearly 200 Academics, Lawmakers, and Activists Demand AFL-CIO Expel Police Unions
June 06, 2020 by Common Dreams, by Jake Johnson, staff writer “The AFL-CIO cannot stand for criminal justice reform, while at the same time allowing police unions to use your power to impede reform.” People face off with police near the Minneapolis 3rd Police Precinct. People gathered at Chicago Ave. and East 38th Street during a rally in Minneapolis on …
Police Unions Have Been Supporting Police Brutality
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/melissasegura/police-unions-history-minneapolis-reform-george-floyd Police unions have become increasingly rightwing as a backlash to the Obama administration and Black Lives Matter — and that’s bad news for the cities they police.Melissa SeguraBuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on June 1, 2020 More than a year before a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned George Floyd to the ground in a knee chokehold, Mayor Jacob Frey banned …
By year 3 of Iraq war, over 2.6 million people wounded, 655K people killed. Pre-war sanctions had already killed 500K children under age 5
When the U.S. invasion of Iraq was in only its third year, a Johns Hopkins University study concluded that 655,000 people had already been killed in that war. Prior to that, the United Nations estimated that pre-war sanctions enforced on Iraq at the behest of the U.S. had killed over 500,000 children under the age of five. Based on the Johns Hopkins estimate of Iraqis …
How reducing inequality will make our cities safer
2 Mar 2020, WEForum by Robert Muggah Principal, SecDev Group and Sameh WahbaGlobal Director, Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice, World Bank Overlapping forms of inequality contribute to violent victimization in cities, from wealth inequality to educational opportunities and property rights; In virtually every city, the vast majority of violent crime is concentrated in just a few neighbourhoods; To …
Car bans are the future in vehicle clogged cities
“It might feel odd to stroll across a crosswalk and not have the grill of a car, waiting to turn right, breathing on your leg. Vehicles have taken over our streets, so people assume vehicles have the right of way,” said Kaufman. Car bans aren’t just about getting places faster. Urban dwellers don’t have to tolerate car-choked streets where pedestrian …
Transforming Justice through Popular Control of Police
Dec 7, <https://popularresistance.org/community-control-of-police/> Cities are spending large shares of their budgets on police at the expense of social services, health care, infrastructure, and other needs. Oakland spent 41 percent of the city’s general fund on policing in 2017. Chicago spent nearly 39 percent, Minneapolis, almost 36 percent, and Houston 35 percent. A recent study documents how a living wage, access to holistic health services and treatment, …
DOJ: In 2018 alone there were 25 race-based terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, each committed by an alleged white supremacist but new legislation focuses on nonviolent civil resistance and property
The Department of Justice reported, in 2018 alone there were 25 race-based terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, each committed by an alleged white supremacist. Immediate action is needed to address this crisis and tragedies like the Aug. 3 shooting in El Paso, Texas. So I read with interest a recent press release of Rep. Michael McCaul—the Republican incumbent in the Texas 10th Congressional …