Women And The Intensification Of War In Chiapas

ZAPATISTA LIVES!

By Delmy Tania Cruz Hernández

July 17, 2024

Source: Ojalá

A woman walks in the municipality of Chilón, Chiapas, on July 12, 2024. (Photo: Gio Leal)

The war against organized Indigenous peoples in Chiapas, launched by the Mexican state after the Zapatista uprising, continues unabated. Paramilitary groups have expanded their presence in the region over the past decades, which has allowed organized crime to gain a foothold.

These armed actors operate through opaque networks, and seek far more than territorial control. Today, they want to destroy organizing and gain absolute control.  

The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Center for Human Rights (Frayba) produced one of the best overviews of the situation in Chiapas. But after reading their report, I wondered: What about women? How does this violence affect us? 

These questions are urgent, especially given that we will have a woman as head of state for the next six years. 

I am not naïve. I do not think that President-Elect Claudia Sheinbaum can stop the violence. Rather, my aim is to say what has not been said in this corner of Mexico, which hegemonic narratives have overlooked once again. 

A continuum of violence against women’s bodies is part of the carnage left by low intensity warfare in this region. Female and feminized bodies have been treated as war booty for decades. That is why we must take a feminist approach to what is happening in this part of southeastern Mexico.  

Ongoing violence

Between January and May of this year, there were 19 femicides, 23 possible femicides, 29 attempted femicides and 76 disappearances of women, according to the Feminist Observatory of Violence Against Women in Chiapas. The number of possible femicides and of attempted femicides has increased since last year. Women between 25- and 29- years old are most at risk of being killed. 

Most of these killings are classified as sexual-systemic femicides, which means elements linked to organized crime are present. This kind of femicide has increased considerably over the last five years. The growth sexual-systemic femicides is especially notable in the Soconusco and Frontera Media regions, which are home to the two main migratory routes in the state, according to Dr. Karla Somosa Ibarra, founder of the Feminist Observatory.

Frayba’s report states that from 2010 to October 2022, at least 16,755 people were forcibly displaced, including entire families. When families flee violence, women often lead the effort to find a new place to live. This is particularly clear in the municipalities of Trinitaria and Margaritas, in the Sierra-Frontera zone of Chiapas, a key border area with Guatemala. 

Women are under siege in this war against the people. They often have to change their daily schedules to avoid blockades. “You can’t leave after 7 pm, because men in pickup trucks set up roadblocks,” a 28-year-old woman who works in tomato greenhouses in the municipality of Margaritas told me. She, like the other women from communities under attack that I spoke with, asked to remain anonymous.

“I don’t even know who my neighbor is anymore, I only know that his house is under surveillance,” said Miranda as we finished cooking for a workshop that we will host. “I heard that he had something to do with the problem of the migrants who were in an accident last year.”

In Chiapas, as in other parts of Mexico, local mayors make pacts with criminal groups. They come to community assemblies with pre-arranged deals that affect communal life and women, such as those relating to the sale of alcohol or the sale of lots to people outside of the communities. 

Women fear for their daughters, their territories and the men in their lives. When they have to leave their communities, they do so carrying their lives on their backs. They seek refuge elsewhere when their spouses or sons are intimidated into joining the ranks of drug traffickers or their daughters are forced into romantic relationships with members of a criminal group. 

Criminal groups often force those who stay and try to make a living in the midst of the occupation to participate in money laundering.

“Every day they ask us to go and collect money and give it to them. They deposit it and force us to go out and collect again. If we refuse, there’s no telling what they’ll do to us,” said another woman, as we shopped together in the market. 

Strategies for life

With everything that’s happening around us, there are a few groups of women, men and families who try to swim against the tide. In municipalities like Comitán, Margaritas and La Trinitaria, we organize autonomously to recover spaces that criminal pacts have taken from us. 

Women are at the forefront of this activism. We are the ones who speak out when we learn about deals between municipal authorities and criminal groups. We encourage other women to reflect and strengthen their hearts to break the chains and scars left by patriarchal violence. 

In the midst of this war against the people, we keep up hope by creating safe places in which we can talk to one another, heal ourselves, and encourage our families and neighborhoods to walk collectively and without fear. We are building community health centers for displaced families who are sick. We ask men to break with the patriarchal pact and stop violence against women, so that they can join the collective project that we dream of.

In the same quiet and steady way, Zapatismo lives and recreates strategies to bring us together. A handful of church members have also denounced the violence and opened spaces in which more people can reflect together, but their own institution has attacked them and criminal groups have threatened them.

Claudia, we don’t trust you

Following Sheinbaum’s landslide electoral victory, voices coming out of different feminist traditions have spoken up. On social networks, some celebrated the fact that a woman will lead the country, saying that the suffragette struggle has finally won. There are more timid voices that question and suggest that this election does not represent continuity, but possibility. Some Indigenous women compañeras have applauded the achievement of making a woman the head of state.

I wonder if these analyses reflect a white-mestizo imaginary of democracy that has won over. Or has the hope of recreating other worlds outside of the state been lost?

During her campaign, Sheinbaum spoke of carrying on the ecocide wrought by the so-called Mayan Train. She reaffirmed her commitment to the construction of development poles in Mexico’s southeast, starting with Tapachula, a border city between Chiapas and Guatemala. 

Of course, there are also voices of organized women who say: “Claudia, I don’t trust you!” I do not believe you can revolt against the imposed desire of your boss, nor that your environmentalism will stop the planet’s temperature from increasing by 2.5 degrees. I don’t believe that militarizing the country is the solution or that posting the National Guard to Chiapas’s borders, in an imitation of Trump’s wall, will stop people from migrating. Nor do I believe that you will break with the extractivist advance.

Not all of us are buying what you are selling. A woman at the top will not change Mexico. We know this and will continue to build freedom beyond the ballot box. 

Kashmiris Will Not Be Trusted to Govern Themselves

Once a Delhi-style statehood is planted on Jammu and Kashmir, it may never come to be lifted.


KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA

By Badri RainaJ

uly 18, 2024

Source: The Wire


Armed forces personnel check voter IDs before allowing voters to enter a polling station at Ganeshpora, a village in Anantnag district. Photo: Umar Farooq



I may be excused to say with Hamlet, “bless my prophetic soul”.

In more than one article, I have sought to caution Kashmiris and those who care about democracy in Kashmir that the idea of granting full statehood back to Kashmiris is not uppermost in the ruling mind.

The latest caution I sounded was in my column of June 17, 2024.

On the question of holding elections to a prospective assembly, the Modi government may have little option but to obey the Supreme Court injunction that the exercise be concluded by September 30.

However, do not be surprised if an argument is again in preparation to tell the top court that the “situation is not conducive” for elections. The sudden uptick in militant attacks that have taken the lives of nearly 10 Indian soldiers in the past month or s may come in handy for such a claim.

But what was clear to many from the start, namely, August 5, 2019, was that the Modi regime had not disbanded the erstwhile state only to hand it back to Kashmiri leaders at some future date.

Voting for parliamentary seats, like it or not, could not have been set aside; and, secondly, those elections were clearly allowed as a testing ground to evaluate what hold the king’s parties had developed among Kashmiris.

The Lok Sabha results from Jammu and Kashmir have been distressing to the ruling BJP.

Not only did it not muster the courage to float its candidates in the valley seats, its proxies who had occupied so much media space through the last five years came a cropper, losing their deposits.

The wretchedly persistent National Conference ran away with two of the three seats in the valley, deleterious delimitation exercises notwithstanding, while the third went to a regularly radical gentleman who languishes in jail.

Thus, left to its own devices, the Modi regime would rather not hold elections to the prospective assembly, but may have to, given its comeuppance in the Lok Sabha elections, and the difficulty it will face in warding off the top court injunctions in the new weakened scenario.

Knowing that such elections may have become a necessity, however distasteful and unwanted, the all pervasive Union Home Ministry has preempted the prerogatives of a prospective Assembly by amending the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation Act of 2019, inscribing further powers to its nominee, the Lieutenant Governor, bearing on control over police services, transfer/posting of bureaucrats, including revenue officers down to the tehsildar level etc.

Thus, as predicted by this writer, it is only, at best, a Delhi model of a state that the Modi dispensation has in mind for Jammu and Kashmir.

No nightmare is more scary for the BJP than the prospect of an electoral majority for the INDIA alliance, chiefly the National Conference, and then the allocation of all constitutionally mandated powers of federal governance to such a dispensation.

All other things having failed – demographic change, delimitation gimmickry, electoral muscle etc. The last thing left to the Modi government is to ride executively rough-shod over Kashmiris, and keep them safe from governing themselves. And, the red-cross knight to make that possible can now only be a lieutenant governor who makes sure that the will of the people as represented in a new Assembly is at every point made subservient to the fiat of the unelected point man at the top of the executive.

What is to be done?

Through the entire period spanning from the abrogation of the erstwhile “special status”, Kashmiris have sought to follow the legal route to seek reversal of things done to them.

To their admirable credit, they have desisted from either taking to violence or instigating violent resistance.

But, surely, with the prospects that loom large before them, perhaps it is time for Kashmiris in both provinces to exercise their constitutional right to peaceful mass protest.

Did not some stalwarts of our freedom movement, and heroes of people’s struggles against authoritarian lurches of the state say that when parliament and government betray the just constitutional prerogatives of “we the people”, the street must speak?

Once a Delhi-style statehood is planted on Jammu and Kashmir, it may never come to be lifted.

In that context, it has been encouraging to hear erstwhile king’s party spokespersons, now disenchanted by the elections and new governmental moves, say that the Union government is betraying Kashmiri democratic and constitutional rights, and that this must be resisted by all and sundry.

Also, can those who are busy lambasting the Emergency of the mid-seventies justly fail to understand how Kashmiris of all hues see the developing situation?



Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.

From Argentina with Love, and Rage

Anti-extractivist struggle, the carbon credit scam, weaving solidarity, an

By Alexandria Shaner, Clarisa Neztor

July 19, 2024

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


Anti-extractivist campaign in Argentina | Photo: @espejogalactico


We have been interrupted.

As Clari and I regrouped after the latest violent attacks by Arauco, a multinational forestry company burning homes and arresting pregnant women in northeastern Argentina, I couldn’t help but reflect on the dismal iteration – our interview exploring Clari’s journey from a childhood interrupted by the violence of the climate crisis to a life of eco-activism, was itself interrupted by the violence of the climate crisis.

Perhaps we now live in an era when all of our lives have been irrevocably interrupted by the climate crisis, landing on some directly and enveloping others as a foggy yet inescapable presence. In that case, it’s appropriate that we can’t tell our stories of resistance without a reminder of what we’re up against – no time for romance. The window for avoidance, complacency, and even for optimism without action has shut. It’s now or never.

Clarisa Neztor is a young activist and environmental engineering student from Misiones, Argentina who needed no reminder to act now. In this interview, we discuss the anti-extractivist struggle in Misiones alongside the indigenous Mbyá Guarani people, the carbon credit scam, developing regional solidarity in Latin America, and organizing under the extreme right wing government of Javier Milei. We consider strategy and paradigm via the inseparability of human rights and the rights of nature, as well as advice on resilience and how to fight by loving.

When I asked Clari why she does it, through a fever brought on by several days of scrambling to assist the now homeless families, organizing regional support for the release of prisoners, and engaging with the press she replied, “I do it because the love I have for life is infinite.”

(This interview has been translated and edited for clarity.)

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Please introduce yourself and how you become involved in environmental justice activism.

My name is Clarisa Neztor and I’m a socio-environmental activist from Misiones, a province in the northeast of Argentina. The Misiones Jungle is home to 52% of the country’s biodiversity and is now threatened by extinction. I study environmental engineering and accompany the struggle of the indigenous Mbyá Guarani people.

I first became aware of the climate crisis at a very young age. By the time I was 10 years old, I had seen extreme floods, forest fires and the sad reality of native fauna killed by these disasters and through ecocide committed by extractive corporations. These experiences deeply sensitized me and led me to dedicate myself to the protection of nature.

When I was 12, I was in charge of ‘Save the Planet,’ a radio program that aired from the Cristo Rey de Apóstoles School. When I left for the radio during the afternoon, my mother would joke with me ‘nobody listens to you,’ but I was happy to go anyway. Action was not optional.

The first time I read an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, as a teenager, was the solidifying moment that set me on a determined path to dedicate my life to the defense of nature.

Today, my mission is to ensure that future generations can enjoy a livable planet. To achieve this, we need to eliminate the extractivist production models that are destroying our ecosystems as well as immiserating and dispossessing people, especially in the Global South and among indigenous people. I work to help raise awareness and organize for collective action to bring about this change.

What organizing work are you currently involved in?

I am active locally with Extinction Rebellion Misiones, where we accompany the indigenous Mbyá Guarani people in their struggle against forestry corporations.

XR is a decentralized, international movement that seeks to influence governments and environmental policies through non-violent resistance, and operates with three rules: tell the truth about the ecological and climate crisis, pressure leaders to act now in proportion to the crisis, and increase democracy through binding citizen participation.XR Misiones accompanies the indigenous Mbya Guarani people in struggle against extractivist corporations and Argentina’s complicit government | Photo: elterritorio.com.ar

I have also been elected by all our regional chapters as XR’s regional liaison for Latin America, responsible for making the voices of the Latin American people heard and expanding our claims, weaving a network of activists around the world.

I am currently focused on publicizing the true impact of the carbon market – a greenwashing strategy of oil companies to continue polluting at the expense of ecosystems in the Global South and the blood of indigenous communities. I am engaged in popular and scientific outreach with universities as well as direct action.



While we worked on this interview, we were interrupted by a violent attack followed by specious arrests of five Misiones residents on the orders of Arauco, one of the forestry companies active in the province. Please describe what happened this week and also elaborate on your work accompanying the struggle of indigenous communities in Misiones.

Yes, as you said, just this week Arauco, a Chilean multinational company against which we have an ongoing struggle, burned down the houses of two local families, attacked them, and arrested five people, among them a pregnant woman. Their crime? Living in their ancestral land while capital pursues its enclosure.

XR Misiones and fellow activists from all over the country immediately began an outreach campaign calling for their release. We broadcasted interviews with the families so that this ongoing violence does not remain hidden and to exert pressure to free those who have been arrested.

XR Misiones poster requesting solidarity for the campesino families repressed and evicted by Arauco, a multinational forestry company. July 2024, Argentina | Image: XR Misiones

This is not the first time something like this has occurred. Arauco has been invading the jungle and stealing the lands of indigenous people and peasants since 1996. All over the world but especially in the Global South, extractive companies like Arauco clear cut the forest to sell the native wood and then replace it with exotic species like pine and eucalyptus monocultures. They also drive out indigenous and local forest dwellers from their land. This practice is not only ecocidal but it displaces communities and destroys livelihoods. XR Misiones has done many local and regional campaigns to give visibility to the damages of monocultures in forestry.

Indigenous people, who have always lived in harmony with nature, are the ones who are on the front lines of suffering as extractivism advances. As I understand it, the struggle for the rights of nature and for human rights is one, it’s all a struggle for life. Together, activists and indigenous communities must defend life. We are intimately aware of the damage and know that it depends on us not to allow it to continue. We cannot rely on governments who protect corporations above life.

In 2021, local indigenous leaders asked me for help after seeing my struggle for the defense of nature. Since then, I have accompanied them, denouncing the forestry companies and doing nonviolent direct actions with XR against Arauco. This union has made me see the much more vulnerable reality of indigenous communities. When the forest is set on fire, the first to suffer are its inhabitants, the Indigenous Mbyá Guarani. They are part of the biodiversity of the Paraná rainforest.

Could you share more about your work to expose the truth of the carbon credit scam?

The government in Misiones has made a deal with the Swiss oil company Global Phoenix Resources to trade carbon credits through the REDD+ mechanism (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation plus increasing carbon stocks). This deal was made under a provincial law that allows the CO2 captured by the entire Misiones rainforest (1500,000 hectares) to be traded through carbon credits for the benefit of the oil company.

This is ridiculous and dangerous on many levels. First of all, why should the ecosystem of Misiones be enclosed and used to mitigate pollution produced by an oil company on the other side of the world? The jungle cannot and should not be commercialized. Second, this business of capitalizing on the atmosphere does not actually stop CO2 emissions, nor the increase of the temperature of the planet. The carbon credit certifiers themselves are financed by oil companies.

The REDD+ mechanism is sold as a solution to climate change but it clearly is not. It only generates guarantees for corporations to continue polluting.

The carbon market causes further harm as it often fails to recognize land rights so that rural and indigenous communities are displaced, usually violently. REDD+ has been implemented for more than 10 years in other countries with disastrous human rights consequences. In the Congo, women living in their villages were killed, in Kenya communities were burned, in Brazil they were banned from using their water, and in Peru they even militarized forests. REDD+ turns indigenous labor, child labor and rural labor into carbon credits and it is a scam.

Families affected by Arauco demand the release of detainees, July 2024 | Photo: Registro de las familias afectadas por Arauco (Families Affected by Arauco)

Another specific problem in Misiones is the vast hectares of pine and eucalyptus monocultures that I previously mentioned. Yes, these trees can capture CO2 from the atmosphere but monocultures also increase soil degradation, decimate biodiversity, increase deforestation of native forests, increase pollution from agrochemical use, increase the likelihood of fires, and increase the violent dispossession of communities.

Overall, the whole process of the carbon market increases damage to local ecosystems and populations, while allowing big polluters to continue polluting with greenwashed reputations. The carbon market benefits big oil corporations and in this particular case, forestry corporations like Arauco, who distinguish themselves as “carbon neutral” for owning more than 230 thousand hectares of monoculture plantations capturing CO2. The carbon market’s true effect is to greenwash extractivism, enable and legitimize land grabs, dispossess indigenous and rural communities, and to privatize public resources like forests and air.

Are there any campaigns or projects you’d like to point to and explain regarding your work developing regional and international solidarity?

Atlanticazo, the defense of the Argentine sea from oil companies, has been a great national and international campaign over the past two years. It arose from the coastal assemblies of Argentina and grew with participation from different regions and countries. XR joined to collaborate and help expand it as much as possible, and we thank the entire international XR community for their cooperation.

More than ten cities mobilized during the arrival of the seismic vessel of the Norwegian company Equinor. The campaign denounced the actions of the government, the complicity of the judiciary, and exposed how the deepening of the extractive model is to obtain dollars for the IMF

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Activists from regional and international organizations collaborate on Atlanticazo, a campaign to protect the Argentine sea from big oil | Image: 350.org

Another example of regional solidarity was seen on Earth Day in 2023. Each of the countries of Latin America where there are XR groups participated in a campaign called Tierras en Rebeldia. It was a call for the protection of nature made with love, where activists demonstrated artistically, held citizen assemblies, festivals and non-violent direct actions to proclaim that we must defend the Earth and its ecosystems that are in extinction. It was an embrace of the brotherhood of all the XR Latin American community.

Military police stop a performance about uranium mining in front of the seat of state government in Brazil. After centuries of unchecked extractivism, 23 XR groups, including chapters in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, united under the ‘Earth in Rebellion’ (Tierras en Rebeldía) banner to tell governments and corporations that they’ve had enough. | Photo: barbarafreitxs

Many countries in the world are experiencing significant rightward shifts causing activists to face harsher conditions. Could you talk about life as an organizer under Milei’s right wing government?

In Argentina, not only are we vulnerable to climate, ecological, economic and social crises, but we are now openly attacked from the highest echelons of power. Even under Argentina’s previous progressive government we experienced extractivism and criminalization of dissent. Under President Milei and the ultra-right, persecution, harassment and violence against activists has intensified, to the point of being accused of being terrorists. Milei’s government utilizes highly violent fascist rhetoric that openly promotes hatred and polarization against those of us who defend the rights of nature. This means that we have to take extreme care of ourselves and our support networks, as well as pay attention to our mental health.

Protesters face heavy repression and criminalization of dissent. Argentina’s new constitution restricts demonstration against the active expansion of extractivism. | Image: Johana Arce / Sisas Medio

We have living memory of the resistance to Argentina’s previous civil military dictatorship and there is broad recognition of the importance of fighting for human rights. However, many human rights organizations still look the other way regarding the consequences of extractivism. As socio-environmentalists, we are working to spread the understanding that the struggle for human rights and for the rights of nature are inseparable.

Of course, indigenous paradigms have a big influence because they are the ones whose rights have been and continue to be least respected. Even though agreements enshrining the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples exist, like the ILO Convention 169, governments and corporations do not respect them. Indigenous people are never consulted in the official decision making process and have been deprived of their rights for 500 years.

These days, the strategies of colonization, discrimination and theft of indigenous land have new forms and names, some of them falsely labeled sustainable like the example of the carbon market, but they are still forms of violations of human rights. Indigenous communities have taught us a lot about resistance and resilience. We constantly learn from their walk on Earth about care, love and respect for all living beings. This deep, loving interdependence is the antidote to fascism.

Protestors in Argentina’s Jujuy province march against anti-democratic constitutional reforms and brutal crackdowns in July, 2023. One person’s sign reads “NO A LA REFORMA SI A LOS DERECHOS,” No to the reform, yes to rights. | Photo: Susi Maresca

You mentioned that your experiences with climate crises and ecocide in your youth influenced you to become a socio-environmental defender. Why do you think that you were able to translate these experiences into agency and resistance? Could you describe that process as you experienced it? Were there any other factors which contributed, like other community members, mentors, or perhaps inspiration from afar?

I feel that I was able to turn my pain into action, because besides having lived through strong climatic experiences as a child, I continued to see up close how corporations and state policies destroyed nature right under our noses. It is not only heartbreaking to feel the smoke of fires for more than two months at a time, but it is unavoidable and unforgettable. Experiencing these fires made me hyper aware of the irreversible and irreparable damage that comes with burning a forest that took more than 100 years to develop, knowing that it will never be there again and that its biodiversity will never be there either. Something has to be done.

Being an activist, for me, means being a voice for nature that is crying out to be defended. It means protecting Mother Earth with all my being. I do it because the love I have for life is infinite.

Though these experiences have caused me to feel much pain, I also saw the strength in the fauna, in all of nature that does its best to resist. I saw it in and have been inspired by the indigenous people. Their fighting and protective spirit towards all life has been a guide and inspiration.

But also the love that comes from me towards each cell of life moves me. I am aware that the time to act is today and not tomorrow, that we can no longer waste a second without protecting what is left. We depend on healthy ecosystems for our very survival.

All this love has been given to me by my parents and my beloved grandfather who always taught me respect and to develop courage and wisdom. He taught me everything I know about the visible universe and my parents have transmitted to me the love for everything that exists. I am grateful for that.

Mbya Guarani communities in the northern area of ​​Misiones, Argentina protest against Arauco’s extractivist forestry activities and demand the replanting of native forests | Image: lapoliticambiental.com.ar

What advice would you give to someone reading this who has either experienced similar crises at home or is aware of them happening all over the world? What can they do?

Advice is difficult because it depends on the context and experience of each person and place. But in my experience, it is always best to weave a network with people and generate community. Create alliances with local assemblies and with indigenous communities, listen to each other, feel what is happening, walk slowly but surely.

Sometimes we want to solve a thousand problems but we can’t do everything. We must develop patience, contemplate everything that happens, understand that everything takes its process, embrace the people who suffer, and do what we can in the place where we are.

When we give all our love to nature and thank her for each step we take, she listens to us and guides us. We are activists for life in extinction, we must learn to listen to nature and be one with her and our environment. Everything we do from the heart will always be the right thing to do. Never give in or give up, there is a long way to go and a lot of life to regenerate

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Socio-environmental activists hold up a sign that reads “Activism works” at a demonstration in Misiones, Argentina | Photo: XR Misiones

My heart breaks when I see what is happening in Misiones. The devastation caused by forestry companies like Arauco is irreparable for communities and nature. Every day there are more pine trees and less native forest. It is devastating to see how indigenous and peasant communities are violated and repressed in complicity with the government of Misiones. I do not understand how people continue to support a political system that always favors the corporations and not the people. It is crucial to confront the government’s complicity with corporations.

This pain drives me to act every day. My daily walk is to work for a paradigm shift that prioritizes life and nature over capital.

We are going through and enduring with our bodies the collapse of all ecosystems. We know that we depend on ecosystems being healthy for our survival, and yet must remember that part of healthy ecology is also dependent on being more united as we protect all that we love to move forward and ensure a livable future.

My advice? Do not leave me alone. We need all of us awake, united, and moving more than ever. There is no other time to act. With love and rage.

Multinational forestry company Arauco arrests and burns the homes of indigenous and campesino people living in their ancestral forest territories. Photo: Registro de las familias afectadas por Arauco (Families Affected by Arauco)


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Alexandria Shaner
Originally from the US, Alexandria has lived most of her life in the Caribbean, as well as in Egypt and Nicaragua. A sailor, writer, organizer, and street medic, she has been involved in community organizing, media, and education for over 20 years. Alexandria is currently a staff member of ZNetwork.org and a writer for Extinction Rebellion. She is active with Caracol: Degrowth Ecosocialist Caucus of DSA, RealUtopia, & the Women's Rights and Empowerment Network. Her work has appeared on ZNet, Common Dreams, Foreign Policy in Focus, CounterPunch, LA Progressive, Waging Nonviolence, Antiwar.com, The African, The Socialist Project, mέtaCPC, DiEM25, PeaceNews, Popular Resistance, Resilience, Grassroots Economic Organizing, Shareable, Dissident Voice, Radio Free, and various other outlets.

I’m a Teamster Against Trump

By Dan Campbell

July 19, 2024

Source: Labor Notes

Image by Glenn Schmidt

I worked hard to elect Sean O’Brien. He is the right president for the Teamsters union. Donald Trump is the wrong president for my country—and I will work like hell to defeat him.

Labor Notes has chronicled our union’s new militancy, including the UPS contract campaign,  aggressive strike action, organizing at Amazon, and more.

A Trump victory imperils all of it.

In 2020, I was on the verge of losing my pension. Every single Republican Senator opposed the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Relief Act. The election of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff with strong Teamster support saved my pension and the retirement of over 400,000 Teamsters across the Midwest and South.

MAGA Republicans have spread “right to work” like a cancer across the Midwest, backed NAFTA and job-killing so-called “free trade” deals, and gutted workers rights.

In my home state of Wisconsin, MAGA Republicans have made it illegal for elected local leaders to raise the minimum wage or to have project labor agreements that ensure that construction projects paid for with our tax dollars are done by union workers making living wages.

Organizing Amazon? Trump appointed union-busting attorneys to destroy the National Labor Relations Board and fought the joint employer rule that is giving workers the right to strike and picket Amazon for the first time.

Trump’s demonization of immigrants isn’t just immoral; it also makes it more likely that immigrant workers will accept sweatshop conditions and less likely that they’ll organize. The result is a race to the bottom that hurts everyone.

The MAGA movement’s attacks on abortion rights, trans people, African Americans, and truth itself fuels division and weakens solidarity, the lifeblood of the labor movement and of any decent society. The labor movement must be against anything employers can use to divide workers and pit one group against another.

Sean O’Brien has been accused of helping Trump and MAGA politicians cover up this record and rebrand themselves as the party of the working class.

The sad reality is that many Teamsters and other union members already buy Trump’s populist persona and rhetoric. It’s our job to engage with them.

O’Brien’s speech in prime time reached millions of workers tuned into the Republican National Convention. As he railed on against the Chamber of Commerce, corporate terrorism, Amazon, and right-to-work laws, the normally raucous Republican convention crowd got awfully quiet. Their silence spoke volumes.

The RNC is over. The fight to defeat Trump is just beginning.

AMERIKA

Cori Bush, Activist-Politician, Still Inspires Working People Like Me

By India Walton

July 17, 2024

Source: Progressive Hub

Congresswoman and BLM activist Cori Bush | Image via @CoriBush/X

I watched the sun set on my top porch on a comfortable summer evening in Buffalo. Suddenly, I heard a commotion; soon after I became short of breath. The smell of pepper burned my throat and eyes. I quickly ran inside, shut the door, and instructed my sons to close all the windows. I sat them in the living room and spoke with them candidly as I always do before I participate in any civil disobedience. Who to call, what to do, what to expect etc. 

As I turned the corner I could see Buffalo Police in full tactical gear unleashing a flurry of what I assumed to be pepper spray on protestors. The protest had been forcibly redirected from downtown and redirected into a residential neighborhood where people could be easily contained and assaulted. What began as a peaceful protest had now become a riot. I watched the windows of local businesses being smashed by teens whose frustration had now become a rage against a system they felt powerless to change. 

That night I organized a call with local activists to devise a plan to keep our community safe. It was obvious to us that our mayor and his police force were incapable of doing so. From that moment forward, we held protests. There was a teach-in before each one. We brought in legal observers, medics, and safety marshalls. We brought snacks, water, and first-aid kits. 

Being in community with hundreds of people each day was invigorating. However, the response from the power structure was lackluster. Every reform we demanded was met with a refusal or watered-down version from the administration. Not to mention there had been a long history of police misconduct, shootings, and abuse of power with no accountability. 

It wasn’t long before the “now what” lived in my head. What change would be brought about by all our protesting if we couldn’t turn it into some kind of power? By now I had read Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” and had been inspired to maybe, someday, run for office. Then I saw “Knock Down the House.” There were so many inspiring people in that film, but the one who resonated with me the most was Cori Bush. A registered nurse and single mother who was on the frontlines in 2014 after the police murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. I used to call myself an “accidental activist” — I didn’t get involved because I thought I had the answers, but because I cared. 

While I was in the streets of Buffalo in 2020, Cori was in the streets of University City, Missouri. I watched her second race closely. Not only did I see myself in her, but I wondered if I could be like her. That was my answer! Who cared if I was a political newcomer and outsider? We had organized thousands of people from all walks of life into a movement all over the country. I knew that we were going to be fighting an uphill battle, going up against a four-term incumbent. I had also watched the small donor fundraising strategy and held a deep belief that “organized people can defeat organized money.” 

So we set about having regular meetings.  We called these meetings “Sunday Sauce” because we hosted them around dinner on Sunday. My kitchen cabinet was full of mothers, teachers, queer folks, young, old and in-between. There were even non-citizens who couldn’t vote but organized the people in their communities who could in their native tongues. We worked diligently and depended on pro-bono professional services to get us to Primary Day. With the support of national progressive organizations we pulled off the biggest political upset in the history of Buffalo, we WON! We did the impossible and for the first time Buffalo would have a progressive, Black, woman mayor – or so we thought. The next week was a whirlwind of national media and excitement all over the world. 

In one interview I was asked if I identified as a democratic socialist, to which I confidently replied, “Oh, absolutely” — that was the moment the sharks smelled blood in the water. From that moment on, the Democrat incumbent (who we had handily defeated with a true grassroots campaign) colluded with Republicans and even major Trump donors to run a fear and smear campaign to cling on to power for the wealthy and well-connected. There are many stories I can tell about the nightmare the campaign turned into but for now, I want to focus on the positive. Buffalo inspired people from all walks of life and all over the nation to get involved, just like I was inspired by Rep. Bush. 

In the days following my defeat in the general election, the progressives of the Democratic Party continued to wrap their arms around me with calls of encouragement, offers for mentorship, and invitations to stay engaged. One of the consequences of having the courage to buck the system is that it closes many doors that are open to those who are complicit. So for now, in these uncertain times, I will spend my time finding the silver lining.

Rep. Cori Bush is a silver lining. She is the first line of defense for working-class people and the most vulnerable members of our community. Though I won’t be able to cast my vote for her, I will be contributing monthly, organizing phone banks, and heading to Missouri in the days leading up to the primary on August 6th to make sure we keep her in Congress. We need her there because we need people to represent us all, people with a moral compass who will stand up to big money. I may not live in Missouri, but our United States Congress makes decisions that impact all. 

India Walton is registered nurse, activist, senior strategist with RootsAction and the former Democratic nominee for mayor of Buffalo, NY