Here’s Why You Can’t Afford an Electric Car

BY SONALI KOLHATKAR

 MARCH 25, 2024
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Cybertruck, Tesla.

It seems that there has never been a better time than now to buy an electric vehicle in the United States, especially if you read news headlines and White House press releases. You might be forgiven for thinking that you can actually afford to upgrade your old gas-guzzling sedan with a sleek, new zero-emissions EV. And if you can’t afford one, the various local, state, and federal rebate programs will surely knock thousands off the price tag, right?

Wrong. In order to be able to qualify for the ever-changing and complicated federal $7,500 rebate on EVs, one has to be rich enough to be able to afford to buy a new EV (some used ones qualify but good luck figuring out which one, and then even better luck finding such a car available for purchase). But, in order to qualify for the rebate, one can’t be too rich. If you’re middle-income, like me, you can lease an EV, but then you don’t qualify for the rebate—your leasing company does—and you’re left paying a hefty monthly lease.

News headlines about Tesla slashing its EV prices might still convince you that a new EV is within reach—that is if you don’t mind enriching one of the worst humans on the planet. But Teslas are still among the more expensive cars on the market.

Meanwhile, there are sensationalist headlines about EV sales falling over the past year, so much so that one might be forgiven for thinking that maybe most people wanting an EV already purchased one and demand is simply weakening. Dig past the headlines however, and the news reports all come to the same conclusion: EVs are still unaffordable for the majority of Americans, especially those who simply want to reduce their carbon footprint and their financial expenses at the same time. “Pricing is still very much the biggest barrier to electric vehicles,” according to one research analyst.

A Los Angeles Times report agreed: “Although the cost of building EVs continues to drop, it has yet to reach price parity with conventional gasoline-powered vehicles.” But the paper then bizarrely blamed Americans for the high price tags, saying, “Americans’ preference for larger vehicles necessitates larger, heavier and costlier battery packs, contributing to the high prices.” There was no mention of auto manufacturers spending years aggressively marketing SUVs and other giant gas guzzlers to Americans. Indeed, there is a whole range of EV trucks on the market right now—still out of the grasp of ordinary middle-income Americans looking for an efficient commuter family car.

Too bad these consumers don’t have access to China’s new EV, the BYD Seagull, a car that test drivers in the U.S. are gushing over, and whose price tag begins at a mere $9,698. “That undercuts the average price of an American EV by more than $50,000,” explained Bloomberg. In fact, more than 70 percent of all EVs sold globally are Chinese manufactured. You don’t have to live in China to buy a Chinese EV. You just have to live outside the U.S.

What most headlines aren’t saying overtly and what the Biden administration is also keeping relatively quiet about is that the U.S. is engaging in a fiercely protectionist trade war with China in order to shield American automakers. Forget the TikTok war—it’s Chinese-made EVs that keep U.S. auto CEOs up at night.

To protect them, the Biden administration is fanning the flames of anti-China sentiment and claiming it is worried about “National Security Concerns” over the computer systems of Chinese-made EVs. “China is determined to dominate the future of the auto market, including by using unfair practices,” said Biden in late February. “China’s policies could flood our market with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security.” The president has even ordered an investigation into China’s so-called smart cars, which most EVs are these days.

But the Biden administration’s climate goals for auto emissions rely on a mass transition to EVs across the nation. Already, it’s behind in ramping up towards its goal of wanting half of all vehicles sold in 2030 to be EVs, likely because most Americans can’t afford them, or can’t access the far-cheaper Chinese-made cars. On top of that, the GOP has now made attacking EVs part of its new culture war. It’s no wonder EVs remain out of reach for most Americans.

Why are Chinese cars so much cheaper, more varied, and just better than American ones? It doesn’t all boil down to the cost of labor as one might imagine. Chinese labor costs are not as low as they used to be. China’s government has simply made EVs a massive priority. An analysis in MIT Technology Review explained, “the government has long played an important role—propping up both the supply of EVs and the demand for them,” and that there have been “generous government subsidies, tax breaks, procurement contracts, and other policy incentives.”

Instead of adopting a similarly aggressive approach to making EVs a priority, the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has created a complex series of tax credits that require all EV materials and labor to be sourced in the U.S.—a goal whose math just doesn’t add up. And, the IRA doesn’t even protect U.S. workers enough. The United Auto Workers (UAW) denounced the IRA on its first anniversary for failing to require fair labor standards in the transition to an EV economy.

Still, UAW did the job itself. Fresh from a major union victory in late 2023 the union won job protections from the three biggest U.S. automakers for workers transitioning into the EV industry.

Our economy relies far too much on cars and most American cities are planned around car-centric living. It’s no wonder that petroleum-powered vehicles are the single largest U.S. source of climate-changing emissions. There are many ways to reduce this source, including redesigning cities to be more walkable, improving the quality and cost of public transportation and train systems, and encouraging bicycle transportation when possible—all of which will take concerted effort, time, and resources.

But the climate clock is ticking fast. After decades of scientists and climate activists sounding the alarm and being ignored, we are only now starting to take baby steps to mitigate climate change and it’s simply not enough. Even when accounting for the mineral extraction needed to make EV batteries, EVs have a far lower carbon footprint than petroleum-based cars and are perhaps the best, most accessible tool we have to quickly reduce our carbon impact.

his article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku) and Pacifica stations KPFK, KPFA, and affiliates. 

Climate Agreements Suck

BY ROBERT HUNZIKER

 MARCH 25, 2024
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Image by Agustín Lautaro.

Climate agreements suck. There are no real enforcement provisions. Many signatories cheat. Some don’t rep0rt at all. Moreover, reported data is highly suspect. It’s a worldwide scandal recently exposed by YaleEnvironment360.

Evidence of cheating is found in the atmosphere: Global CO2 is on a rampage, skyrocketing upwards like never before, double-to-triple rates of only one year ago, see: CO2 Bursting into the Atmosphere. This is not supposed to be happening. It is twisting the planet’s climate system into a pretzel that doesn’t know which way to turn next. There are plenty of reasons to believe it is going to get much, much worse. The planet’s climate system is already so far whacked-out that it’s breathing fire.

For example, the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-3A satellite registered a 705% increase in fire activity in Canada in 2023 versus the prior six-years.

Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions are skyrocketing in the aftermath of the much-touted climate agreement Paris ‘15 when 196 countries agreed to cut to net zero. Oops, wrong, many signatories are “net nothing.”

There is compelling evidence that signatory nations to Paris ’15 don’t give a damn about the agreement or care about Hot House Earth as they cavalierly undercount, when they do report, or they simply refuse to report. As a result, UN climate goals go straight into the trash, worthless.

In March 1994 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) organized an objective to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. That’s when “humans” were “officially recognized” as an active participant in climate change. It’s been downhill ever since. In fact, it’s been an ongoing disaster. The evidence is found in greenhouse gas emissions increasing every year since UNFCCC formalized. And now, as of 2024, emissions are bordering on torrential increases.

Worse yet, UNFCCC and Paris ’15 lures the world community into a false sense of hope, false pretense that everything is under control, we’ve got the nations of the world agreeing to combat global warming, not to worry. The illusion works because very little outrage about the illusion has been touted in public. In the real world, UNFCCC and the Paris climate agreement of 2015 are phony symbols of success. Get over it.

YaleEnvironment360 recently, March 21, 2024, published an exposé about the scandalous behavior of signatories to climate agreements: Nations Are Undercounting Emissions, Putting UN Goals at Risk researched and written by Fred Pearce, one of the best most respected environmental journalists.

The article opens by stating the heart of the problem as “lax rules” allow for national inventories reporting to the UN “grossly underestimating many countries’ greenhouse gas emissions.”

In fact, according to the article “most countries published data to UNFCCC’s website is typically out of date, inconsistent, and inc0mplete.” According to Glen Peters, Centre for International Climate Research (Norway): “I would not put much value, if any, on the submissions.”

For example, China’s coal reporting is likely so seriously underreported that its underreporting equals total emissions of many major industrial countries. And in the US, a recent article in Nature, US Oil and Gas System Emissions from Nearly One Million Aerial Site Measurements d/d March 13, 2024, exposed methane emissions three times more than the government reported.

One of the world’s major oil & gas producers, Qatar stopped reporting emissions in 2007. No surprise there as it’s the world’s highest per-capita CO2 emissions abuser. Meanwhile, they revel in billions of dollars the world pays to dishevel the planet’s climate system. Even worse yet, it’s believed their undeclared emissions have doubled since 2007. Is something radically amiss here?

The Philippines last sent its inventory in 2013. Guyana in 2012.

According to Pearce’s article: “The world is flying blind, unable either to verify national compliance with emissions targets or figure out how much atmospheric ‘room’ countries have left for emissions before exceeding agreed warming thresholds.”

The standards for reporting are replete with uncertainties. Even with activity data that’s filed there’s no way to know how much fossil fuel is burned in most countries or how much methane leaks. And uncertainties are prevalent in how activities are converted into emissions estimates. Off the shelf formulae often fails to reflect real conditions. In short, it’s almost as if a gigantic Ponzi scheme oversees UN reporting standards.

The deception is found everywhere, e.g., in Canada, aircraft measurements of CO2 over the enormous tar sands project revealed emissions 64% higher than reported. Moreover, satellite data analyzed by the International Energy Agency on a global basis discovered methane emissions 70% higher worldwide over oil and gas fields than officially reported.

The overall scandal even extends to what should be “positive reports.” According to Clemens Schwingshackl of Ludwig-Maximilian’s University/Munich: “Governments collectively claim their forests are soaking up 6 billion tons more Co2 each year than scientists can account for.”

Everybody everywhere is fudging, cheating, obscuring, pretending, and/or avoiding reality. Yet over 100 heads of state, presidents, prime ministers, environmental ministers, secretaries of state, etc. show up for the annual COPs (UN Conference of the Parties) for photo-ops. And that’s pretty much the extent of the substance.

Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at rlhunziker@gmail.com.

Meet Your Landlord’s Worst Nightmare: Tenants Unions

Nearly half of all renters in 2019 were spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Tenants have had enough—and they’re doing something about it.

TORONTO, MONTREAL AND VANCOUVER HAVE TENANTS UNIONS

By Dayton Martindale

March 23, 2024

Source: In These Times

Toronto tenants on strike at 33 King Street, June 1, 2023. (Twitter / YSW Tenant Union)



ten•ant un•ion

noun
an organization of renters who organize to collectively bargain with their shared landlord
a neighborhood-wide or citywide group that works to protect tenants’ rights

Why do tenants need a union?


In a phrase: The rent is too damn high! Renters make up more than a third of the country and, as a group, are disproportionately low-income and households of color. In 2019, nearly half of all renters were spending more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Since Covid-19, things have only gotten worse, with many cities seeing rent spikes in 2021 and 2022 — even cities with a declining population.

And what do renters get for their hard-earned money? A figurative slap in the face. From callous landlords who fail to meet code and delay needed maintenance to absurd fees for everything from cashing checks to rental applications, many tenants have had enough.

What can a tenant union do?


Tenant organizing has been around for more than a century, with renters banding together to push for fairer agreements with landlords. The tenant union model took off in 1960s Chicago, where tenants in several neighborhoods came together to negotiate agreements with their landlords. It’s the same foundational idea that motivates labor unions: Collectively, renters can negotiate a better contract than they could individually. A union can also help tenants coordinate rent strikes, protests, mutual aid and political campaigns.

In the ensuing decades, unions sprang up at every scale. The National Tenants Union even lobbied Congress for rent control in the early 1980s. The movement is back on the rise, with unions growing from Connecticut to Denver to Los Angeles.

In Kansas City, Mo., the citywide tenant union has more than 9,000 members. The group helped pass a law guaranteeing a lawyer for renters during eviction proceedings, and, this June, one of the group’s leaders won a seat on city council. In Kingston, N.Y., tenant unions and other housing justice organizers won a rent reduction for 1,200 units in 2022.

Sign me up!

If you’re a renter, it’s worth looking up to see if any tenant unions or housing justice groups exist in your community. If not, here’s one good way to get started: Go out and talk with your neighbors, see what you all might need, and organize a get-together to listen to one another.




ILLUSTRATION BY TERRY LABAN

In Unprecedented Asylum Case, UK Recognizes Israel’s Persecution of Palestinians

In a precedent-setting case, a Palestinian citizen of Israel won asylum in the UK, citing apartheid and persecution.

By Sophie Hurwitz

March 25, 2024

Source: Truthout

Palestinian solidarity mural in Belfast, Ireland. Image credit: PPCC Antifa/Flickr



Hasan*, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, has spent all but one of his 24 years of life in the United Kingdom. He does not speak Hebrew or Arabic fluently, and depends on British medical care. In 2019, Hasan was informed that he was to be deported to Israel, separating him from his family in the U.K., so he filed an asylum claim. In 2022, that claim was denied, forcing him to appeal. In the years since then — and in recent months, as Israel’s post-October 7 incursion into Gaza has brought Palestinians’ human rights into the international spotlight — Hasan has waited. His appeal hearing was scheduled for March 12 of this year.

If Hasan were to be returned to Israel, his lawyers wrote that he’d face “likely persecution” because he is Palestinian, because he is Muslim, and because of “his anti-Zionist, anti-apartheid and pro-Palestinian political opinion.” But in a surprising reversal March 11, Hasan was told that he’d be allowed to stay — without having to go to court. His lawyers say this is a precedent-setting recognition by the British state of the Israeli government’s persecution of Palestinians.

“This is a victory not just for me but for all Palestinians living under the apartheid Israeli regime,” Hasan wrote in a statement. “Without even having to step into court, the U.K. government has now accepted that the Palestinian struggle for freedom should not just be limited to Gaza and the West Bank but to all parts of historic Palestine under Israeli rule.”

The impact of Hasan’s case, legal experts say, could reverberate beyond the U.K., impacting Palestinian refugees claiming asylum in places like the United States, too.

Hasan’s barrister, Franck Magennis, called the decision “completely unprecedented,” and said that it amounted to an acknowledgment that even Palestinians with Israeli citizenship are likely to experience violence and harm at the hands of the Israeli state. “It amounts to admission by the British state that there’s a real risk that Israel persecutes at least some of its own Palestinian citizens, whether because they’re anti-Zionist or simply because they’re Palestinian.”

This may be the first case in which a Palestinian citizen of Israel has successfully won asylum in the U.K. on the argument that an apartheid system of racial domination systematically oppresses Palestinian citizens. On a page set up to crowdfund his legal support, Hasan stated that he particularly wanted to underscore apartheid in his case. “My previous solicitors dropped my case because they were nervous that I wanted to put the spotlight on Israeli apartheid as part of my asylum case,” he wrote. His new lawyers built his case around the 1951 Refugee Convention, and highlighted several nongovernmental organization- and United Nations-affiliated reports demonstrating that Palestinians, even those who are not among the million actively under starvation and bombardment in Gaza, are being prohibited from leading a full and equitable life within the Israeli state.

“Zionists would say, ‘[Hasan has] a passport. He’s a citizen of the state, he can appear in front of his state’s courts. What’s the problem?’ The obvious answer to which is that the U.K. Home Office accepted that the fact of his citizenship was insufficient to eliminate the real risk that he’d still be persecuted,” Magennis said.

As referenced in Hasan’s case, 65 laws in the Israeli constitution explicitly discriminate against the country’s Arab population and classify them as second-class citizens. And after October 7, that condition has rapidly deteriorated. Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has ordered police to prohibit even the waving of the Palestinian flag in public places, and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has stated that Arab citizens of Israel are experiencing a “systemic witch hunt,” at constant risk of job loss, arrest and jail time. In Israel, a country where a person can be locked in jail for making Facebook posts expressing grief for the people of Gaza, Hasan’s claim that he would face persecution for his history of public pro-Palestinian political work in the U.K. was also bolstered by the International Court of Justice’s recent interim judgement in South Africa v. Israel, in which the court described the rhetoric of senior Israeli government officials as “discernably genocidal and dehumanizing.”

“Really, it’s a factual argument, right?” Magennis told Truthout. “We’re saying there is this pervasive system of racial discrimination which touches on every aspect of Palestinian life.” Today, the 1.6 million Palestinian citizens comprise about 20 percent of Israel’s population, but they aren’t accorded equal rights under Israeli law: They’re restricted in where they can live and who they can marry, and regularly face discrimination in schooling and employment.

Taher Gulamhussein, one of Hasan’s solicitors, told Truthout that, “While the world is rightfully focused on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, it is critical to understand that by virtue of its being an apartheid state, Israel’s oppression extends to any Palestinians under its control and authority.”

The case is not entirely without precedent: In the U.K., an Israeli anti-Zionist rabbinical student won asylum on similar claims of probable persecution in 2022. And in the U.S., all the way back in 2003, a man with a Palestinian father and a Jewish Israeli mother was able to claim asylum using a similar argument, detailing his repeated, violent encounters with Israeli marines, and how his status as someone of Palestinian heritage made it near-impossible for him to find work despite his citizenship.

Magennis hopes this case will be useful outside the U.K., too. “The global significance of this decision is that a Palestinian, or indeed an anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli, finding themselves in the United States could, in principle, claim asylum and use the Refugee Convention to advance a very similar argument about Israeli apartheid,” he said.

The U.S. is not known for its respect of international law. But U.K. cases can be referenced in U.S. courts, experts say. Patrick Taurel, a U.S. immigration lawyer with a history of representing Palestinian refugee clients, told Truthout that U.K. cases like this one “can be cited as persuasive authority. But they’re never going to be binding on any kind of adjudicator in the United States.”

The U.S., like the U.K., is home to a community of a few thousand Palestinian refugees. And the U.S. government, too, has recently produced a ruling granting protection to some Palestinians seeking asylum.

In the U.S. case, that protection comes in the form of a Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) ruling from President Joe Biden last month. Similar to the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) rulings issued for asylum seekers from countries like Venezuela or Haiti, a DED ruling means that “certain Palestinians” currently in the U.S. will be protected from deportation — and be able to access work permits — for the next 18 months. (The memorandum does exclude certain categories of Palestinian immigrants, and the boundaries of some of those categories are vague: For example, anyone whose presence in the U.S. “the Secretary of Homeland Security has determined is not in the interest of the United States” will not be protected.)

That choice of DED over TPS could have been made out of a desire to avoid alienating the Israeli government, said University of California, College of the Law, San Francisco Professor Karen Musalo. A DED ruling only requires the president’s approval, while TPS requires the cooperation of several government agencies, and the release of a more detailed report on the reasons for granting special status to people fleeing a given country.

“Politically, it is much easier and more expedient for the administration to issue deferred enforced departure, because it just involves the president,” Musalo told Truthout. “He can issue this memo that basically talks about difficult humanitarian conditions in Gaza and does not say more.” In order to issue a deferred enforced departure ruling, the president does not have to produce a statement on, for example, the causes behind those difficult humanitarian conditions.

Much like Hasan’s case, the U.S. DED ruling is a tacit admission by a government staunchly allied with Israel that the Israeli government persecutes Palestinians. “The relationship of the U.S. and many other countries with Israel has resulted in reluctance to be critical when the human rights conditions would legitimately call for criticism,” Musalo said. These sorts of legal maneuvers point to a contradiction in the law of both the U.K. and the U.S. The U.S. is the largest provider of foreign military aid to Israel, to the tune of billions of dollars this year alone, while the U.K. has sold about half a billion dollars’ worth of weaponry to Israel in the past decade. Historically, both countries have backed Israel staunchly, but, in aspects of their immigration policy, they acknowledge that the regime they support also persecutes its own citizens.

As far as Hasan goes, he will now be allowed to remain with his family in the U.K., the country where he has spent nearly all his life. That means he’ll be able to continue his medical treatments, live and work in a country where he speaks the language, and express his political opinions in relative safety — things that would’ve been out of reach had he been returned to Israel, where he stated in documents submitted to the U.K. Home Office that he would be forced to conceal his identity and beliefs, and as he put it, “mute myself.”

“I wish to extend a huge thank you to all those who have supported my case,” he said in a statement released by his lawyers. “Without your help, I could not have reached this point.”

*A U.K. tribunal has ordered that Hasan’s real identity cannot be disclosed for his own protection.

Left Leaders, Intellectuals Demand: ‘Free Boris Kagarlitsky and all anti-war political prisoners in Russia’

By Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign

March 25, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.



An international campaign for the freeing from prison of well-known Russian intellectual, writer and anti-war activist Boris Kagarlitsky, along with all other jailed opponents of the war in Ukraine, was launched on March 11 by the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign.

Produced in multiple languages (including Russian and Ukrainian), the campaign petition has already won the support of former British Labour Party leaders Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, eminent French left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and leaders and elected representatives of left and progressive parties North and South: in Germany, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, Quebec, Puerto Rico, Spain and Russia itself.

These supporters have been joined by well-known left intellectuals Naomi Klein, Slavoj Žižek, Fredric Jameson, Etienne Balibar and Claudio Katz.

The petition has been published on two platforms: www.freeboris.info and change.org, both of which carry regular updates about the campaign. By March 22, it had collected over 7000 signatures of support.

Background

Boris Kagarlitsky was sentenced to five years jail by a military appeals court on February 13. The judges heeded the prosecution case that his initial punishment of a $6550 fine and two-year ban on administering web sites was “excessively lenient” (see here for full details of the farcical case against Kagarlitsky on the charge of “justifying terrorism”).

As a result, the international networks whose effort had helped keep the Russian writer from prison in his initial trial have come together in the present campaign. Its immediate purpose is to draw the attention of international left and progressive forces to the repression of their Russian colleagues, of whom Boris Kagarlitsky is probably the best known.

Stop the repressive machine

The left in Russia is being subjected to unprecedented repression. Many organisations have been shut down and activists who despite official threats have had no intention of leaving the country have been sent to jail on a variety of spurious grounds.

The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign is calling on left and democratic forces globally to demand a halt to the repressive machine from which their Russian counterparts suffer, because they draw attention to the serious problems accumulating in Russia due to its war in Ukraine.

The campaign believes that without international attention, Russia’s anti-war political prisoners will be left alone to face a government that condemns them not only to imprisonment, but also to the prospect of death. Conditions in Russian detention centres are far from satisfactory, as Boris Kagarlitsky, confined to a pre-trial detention centre for the duration of his appeal, is now experiencing.

In his letters from prison, Kagarlitsky insists on the need to support all left-wing activists presently behind bars, especially those whose names are not as well-known as his.

Globally, the campaign aims to build so much support that it becomes impossible for politicians who are in dialogue with the Russian government to ignore it.

Within Russia, the campaign appeals to all who are concerned about the future of their country, to those who are convinced that change cannot come without an end to the fighting and the release of all who favour a progressive rethink of the Putin regime’s current policies.

It is expected that Boris Kagarlitsky’s appeal will be heard in early May: the international solidarity campaign therefore calls for an urgent effort over the next six weeks—on Kagarlitsky’s behalf and that of all Russia’s anti-war political prisoners.

The petition is presently available in the following languages (with others soon to come): Arabic, Czech, Danish,Greek, Spanish, English, French, Hindi, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Swedish and Ukrainian.

For further information contact boris.solidarity@gmail.com

Georgia Swamp Defenders Call for Public Support Against Mining Operation

Locals are defending Georgia’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge from a proposed titanium mine that threatens endangered species and the swamp’s carbon-capturing process

By Ash Peterson

March 25, 2024

Source: Prism


Okefenokee Swamp Defenders

Gerod Ford inherited his love of swampland from his grandmother, who grew up visiting Florida’s wetlands. She would later tell her grandchildren that “the symbiosis of the swamp is what we strive for as a community.” After moving to Georgia, Ford said his grandmother was ecstatic to learn about the Okefenokee Swamp, the nation’s largest blackwater swamp and the home to several endangered species. Her age and health in recent years have prevented her from traveling, and Ford says her one wish is to visit the swamp one last time before she passes.

“I don’t have the heart to tell her that she may not get that chance again,” Ford said at a public meeting hosted by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division this month.

The EPD called the March 5 meeting to collect comments from speakers like Ford on the topic of Twin Pines Minerals’ proposed mining operation less than 3 miles from the Okefenokee Swamp. The LLC plans to extract titanium dioxide (a compound commonly used to whiten products like toothpaste) from Trail Ridge, a long stretch of sand that borders the swamp.

Nearly 100 members of the public spoke at that meeting, among them former EPD and EPA employees. Speakers shared concerns about the project, pointing to evidence that the mine could jeopardize the swamp’s water levels and its ability to capture greenhouse gases.

No speakers said they were in favor of the mine, and most urged the public to submit comments about the project before the April 9 deadline.

Reverend Antwon Nixon lives in Folkston, Georgia, a 15-minute drive from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. He first learned about the Trail Ridge mine at a 2021 Juneteenth celebration, when Senior Attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center Bill Sapp brought a sign advocating for the protection of the Okefenokee.

“I had heard nothing about it,” Nixon said. “I lived just a couple of miles from the swamp.”

Sapp told Nixon about the Okefenokee Protection Alliance, a coalition of more than 40 organizations committed to the preservation of the swamp.

One of these organizations is One Hundred Miles, a nonprofit that seeks to protect Georgia’s coast. One Hundred Miles Coastal Planning Advocate Hannah Mendillo said mining on Trail Ridge could seriously impact the Okefenokee Swamp.

“Mining on Trail Ridge is kind of like poking holes in the side of a bathtub,” Mendillo said. “Trail Ridge is that cup that holds everything in.”

Twin Pines plans to withdraw more than 1.4 million gallons of water from the Floridan Aquifer each day. In January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent a letter reminding state regulators that federal law prohibits diverting water from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in quantities that would negatively impact its ability to serve as a habitat for its native wildlife. Last year, the FWS also asserted that Twin Pines’ assessments of the mine’s impact on the refuge had “critical shortcomings.”

The federal agency predicted a higher likelihood of fires in the area due to lower water levels and dry conditions. These fires could degrade the area’s carbon-capturing soil, threatening its natural ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Mendillo has been trying to educate the public on these risks and enlist them in the fight against the mine. Along with rallying for favorable legislation, One Hundred Miles has connected with community members to manage a paper petition, which has garnered more than 500 signatures so far. The petition is available at local events, including something One Hundred Miles calls “Okefenokee Connections,” where organizers take people on boat tours in the swamp.

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Georgia House Representatives, local community members, students, and advocates gather at the Capitol for a press conference regarding local support for legislation that protects the Okefenokee Swamp from mining. (Photo by Hannah Mendillo)

One group selected for a tour was Cherokee of Georgia, one of only three state-recognized tribes in Georgia.

“I was really surprised at how many of our tribal members had not been there,” said tribal liaison Jane Winkler. “It was thoroughly enjoyed by all.”

Winkler, an enrolled member of the Beaver Creek tribe out of South Carolina, has been volunteering with the Cherokee of Georgia since she and her husband moved to Georgia. Opposition to the mine has consumed much of her time over the past couple of years.

The Okefenokee Swamp and its surrounding lands are the traditional homelands of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, whom the federal government forcibly removed nearly 200 years ago. According to Winkler, the Cherokee of Georgia came to live in this area due to lesser-known relocation efforts lasting from the 1940s through the 1970s.

“[The swamp] has been declared a sacred site by the Muscogee (Creek) of Oklahoma, who are federally recognized, and they’re descendants of the Creek who were relocated during the 1800s,” Winkler said. “And we honor that, and are doing our best to protect it.”

The Cherokee of Georgia tribal grounds are less than 5 miles from the proposed mine site, and Winkler worries that their shallow wells will go dry because of the mine’s activities. The nearby waterways also play an important role in the tribe’s culture, meaning poor water quality can prevent them from completing ceremonies traditionally.

The swamp has historically been a haven for Black Americans as well, and nonprofit Okefenokee Swamp Park recently announced it will use half a million dollars to document and preserve the history of a group of all-Black conservationists who contributed to the swamp’s present-day condition.

“When I grew up, Okefenokee Swamp was the place ‘the Blacks’ could go,” said Deborah Reed, who grew up in the segregated South, in an interview with “Conservation Connection.” “You knew that you was going to be taken to the Okefenokee Swamp sometime during the summertime because it was a place you could go and nobody said nothing.”

Initially, Winkler said the Cherokee of Georgia wasn’t directly involved in the opposition to the mine, out of concern that a complaint from the public could jeopardize the tribe’s nonprofit status. The tribe doesn’t receive support from the local, state, or federal governments, so they rely on donations.

Once more groups spoke out against the project—including national organizations like the National Wildlife Refuge Association—the tribe was able to become more active by co-signing letters of opposition and submitting comments to the EPD.

“Now that there’s safety in numbers, we can participate on a greater level,” Winkler said.

Student organizers have joined the fight as well. Caleb Gustavson, a freshman at Georgia State University, attended the EPD’s hearing along with Ford, who serves as the campaign coordinator for the school’s “Save Money, Save Environment” campaign.

Gustavson works with Georgia State University’s Student Public Interest Research Group, and he spent his spring break canvassing all over Metro Atlanta. He said the people he’s spoken to have been overwhelmingly supportive, and the canvassing team has gathered 285 signatures to send to Governor Brian Kemp’s office.

“The bottom line is that the Okefenokee is simply more important than making toothpaste white,” Gustavson said.

Hannah McGrath, the campus organizer at Georgia State for Georgia PIRG, said the group will be hosting several on-campus events to get the word out.

Most of the mine’s opponents point to the fact that the EPD has already fined Georgia Renewable Power—which shares a parent company with Twin Pines—for environmental violations, and speakers at the public meeting said they feared similar results if Twin Pines is allowed to mine on Trail Ridge.

“There have been mining interests along Trail Ridge in the past, and some of the bigger ones like DuPont failed to get off the ground because of community backlash,” Mendillo said. “If we’re setting this precedent that it’s OK, then long term the swamp would be at risk.”

Advocates emphasize the importance of getting the public to submit public comments to the EPD before April 9. Winkler and Nixon pointed to the Everglades as a cautionary tale for the Okefenokee Swamp.

“I just want people to know how important their voices are to us and that we need them just as much as we need ourselves,” Nixon said.


Ash Peterson (she/they) is a freelance writer and illustrator with a particular interest in environmental and disability issues. They are based in Northwest Georgia, where she received two awards from the Georgia Association of Broadcasters for her work as a local news anchor.

Close-up of Death Culture: 1,000 in Entertainment Biz Proclaim Support for Gaza Slaughter

By Norman Solomon

March 25, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Image credit: Nissa Tzun via Flickr



Last week, Variety reported that “more than 1,000 Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter denouncing Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ Oscar speech.” The angry letter is a tight script for a real-life drama of defending Israel as it continues to methodically kill civilians no less precious than the signers’ own loved ones.

A few ethical words from Glazer while accepting his award provoked outrage. He spoke of wanting to refute “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” and he followed with a vital question: “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Those words were too much for the letter’s signers, who included many of Hollywood’s powerful producers, directors and agents. For starters, they accused Glazer (who is Jewish) of “drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.”

Ironically, that accusation embodied what Glazer had confronted from the Academy Awards stage when he said that what’s crucial in the present is “not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now.’”

But the letter refused to look at what Israel is doing now as it bombs, kills, maims and starves Palestinian civilians in Gaza, where there are now 32,000 known dead and 74,000 injured. The letter’s moral vision only looked back at what the Third Reich did. Its signers endorsed the usual Zionist polemics — fitting neatly into Glazer’s description of “Jewishness and the Holocaust” being “hijacked by an occupation.”

The letter even denied that an occupation actually exists — objecting to “the use of words like ‘occupation’ to describe an indigenous Jewish people defending a homeland that dates back thousands of years.” Somehow the Old Testament was presumed to be sufficient justification for the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza, most of whose ancestors lived in what’s now Israel. The vast majority of 2.2 million people have been driven from their bombed-out homes in Gaza, with many now facing starvation due to blockage of food.

Israel’s extreme restrictions on food and other vital supplies are causing deaths from starvation and disease as well as enormous suffering. In early March, a panel of U.N. experts issued a statement that declared: “Israel has been intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October. Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys.” (So much for the anti-Glazer letter’s claim that “Israel is not targeting civilians.”)

Last weekend, on Egypt’s border at the crossing to Rafah, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “Here from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage.”

But there is not the slightest hint of any such moral outrage in the letter signed by the more than 1,000 “creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals.” Instead, all the ire is directed at Glazer for pointing out that moral choices on matters of life and death are not merely consigned to the past. The crimes against humanity committed by Nazi Germany against Jews are in no way exculpatory for the crimes against humanity now being committed by Israel.

What Glazer said in scarcely one minute retains profound moral power that no distortions can hide. Continuity exists between the setting of “The Zone of Interest” eight decades ago and today’s realities as the United States supports Israel’s genocidal actions: “Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Much of the movie’s focus is on the lives of a man and a woman preoccupied with career, status and material well-being. Such preoccupations are hardly unfamiliar in the movie industry, where silence or support for the Gaza war are common among professionals — in contrast to Jonathan Glazer and others, Jewish or not, who have spoken out in his defense or for a ceasefire.“What he was saying is so simple: that Jewishness, Jewish identity, Jewish history, the history of the Holocaust, the history of Jewish suffering, must not be used in the campaign as an excuse for a project of dehumanizing or slaughtering other people,” the playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner said in an interview with an Israeli newspaper days ago. He called Glazer’s statement from the Oscars stage “unimpeachable and irrefutable.”

Yet even without signing the open letter that denounced Glazer’s comments, some in the entertainment industry felt compelled to assert their backing for a country now engaged in a genocidal war. Notably, a spokesperson for the financier of Glazer’s film, Len Blavatnik, responded to the controversy by telling Variety that “his long-standing support of Israel is unwavering.”

How many more Palestinian civilians will Israel murder before such “support for Israel” begins to waver?

Norman Solomon is an American journalist, author, media critic and activist. Solomon is a longtime associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). In 1997 he founded the Institute for Public Accuracy, which works to provide alternative sources for journalists, and serves as its executive director. Solomon's weekly column "Media Beat" was in national syndication from 1992 to 2009. He was a Bernie Sanders delegate to the 2016 and 2020 Democratic National Conventions. Since 2011, he has been the national director of RootsAction.org. He is the author of thirteen books including "War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine” (The New Press, 2023).