COP 30: Entrenching the crisis of climate politics

By Brian Ashley

30 November, 2025

First published at Amandla!.

As the dust settles after COP30 in Belém, the scale of the failure becomes impossible to ignore. The world is on a path toward catastrophic warming, ecological systems are collapsing, and millions across the Global South face annihilation, not in the distant future, but today. The world’s political and economic elites arrived in the Amazon to negotiate when the 1.5°C target had already slipped out of reach, and they left with little more than symbolic gestures. No binding emissions cuts. No serious plan to phase out fossil fuels. No meaningful climate finance for adaptation. No accountability for the destruction already unleashed.

The gap between official international climate policy and the lived reality of a warming world has never been wider. In Belém, that gap became a chasm.

The world is heading towards roughly 2.8°C of warming by the end of the century. This is not a scenario compatible with human dignity — or even, for many, with life itself. Rising seas, extreme heat, drought, and flooding are eroding food security, displacing communities, and driving inequality to historic heights. The economic costs of climate disasters are skyrocketing, but the social and human costs are immeasurable: lives lost, livelihoods shattered, ecosystems irreversibly damaged.

These worsening crises play out in a world shaped by neoliberal austerity and debt dependency. Countries battling climate shocks are forced to cut social spending, privatise public goods, and surrender sovereignty to creditors. Governments continue pouring billions into militaries, fossil fuel subsidies, and the enrichment of corporate elites. The current political economy accelerates both warming and war.

The growing irrelevance of the COP

COP30 offered no mechanisms for enforcement, no firm deadlines, and no clear pathways to keep warming below 1.5°C. Nor did it include a fossil-fuel phase-out; oil-producing nations blocked binding language, and the final deal focused on voluntary road maps instead. What it did offer was an expanded space for corporate actors, carbon traders, and mining interests seeking to greenwash extractivist projects.

What is staring society in the face — and what too few scientists are willing to acknowledge — is that the climate-crisis regime cannot be separated from the logic of capitalism. So-called “green transitions” simply open new arenas for profit while remaining embedded in the same global system of accumulation. Renewable energy may be expanding, but it does not replace fossil fuels; it merely adds to an energy expansion rather than driving a real transition.

Climate summits have become a “safety valve” for capital. They offer the illusion of action, while allowing the core exploitative relations to continue. For workers and communities already suffering climate breakdown, it is indisputable that the COP has failed them.

The Just Transition heist

COP 30 adopted the Belem Action Mechanism for a Global Just Transition (BAM) — a proposed new institutional arrangement under the UNFCCC designed to address the current fragmentation and inadequacy of global just transition efforts. Trade unionists and workers should have no illusions about this mechanism. It has no finances or concrete plans to protect workers and communities affected by energy and other decarbonising initiatives. There are no resources for a re-industrialisation in harmony with the protection of nature. So workers and other vulnerable sectors will simply be left behind. Words and policies in COP statements are a dime a dozen. Reality is harsher.

Why mass movements matter — and why institutions don’t

If COP30 cannot deliver the mechanisms for decarbonisation or social protection, then the hope must lie in movements of people: workers, peasants, indigenous people, women, youth, and the urban poor. Outside of a global mass movement rooted in national realities, the necessary steps to confront the climate crisis will not occur. Yet such a movement cannot be built if it fails to address the immediate needs of the working classes and the poor. The fight for climate protection and ecological justice must therefore begin with the fight for life itself — for clean water, decent housing, jobs, food, and security against the elements.

Right-wing climate denialists exploit the desperation of the poor to drive a wedge between ordinary people and climate action. They present environmentalism as a threat to livelihoods rather than the path to survival. To win the majority, our movement must link ecological transformation with social justice. We must demand the redistribution of wealth and power away from the billionaire class, big tech, and ruling elites who plunder the planet for profit.

Brian Ashley is a member of Zabalaza for Socialism and serves on the Amandla! editorial collective.

Facing the Climate Crisis, Can We Make Politics Move Faster Than Physics?

As Tehran runs low on water, New York City considers divesting from planet-wrecker Blackrock. We need more of the latter to prevent more of the former.


The Jewish Youth Climate Movement, with support from the interfaith organization GreenFaith, led a nonviolent civil disobedience action outside of BlackRocks New York headquarters to demand the global asset management firm stop funding the fossil fuel industry.
(Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Bill Mckibben
Nov 29, 2025

The Crucial Years


We are not getting out of the climate crisis without immense amounts of damage—the only question at this point is whether we can extricate ourselves with something like our civilizations intact. And the news from one cradle of civilization isn’t heartening: In Iran, where urban settlements date back to 4400 BC, the deepest drought in the country’s recorded history has now reached the havoc stage.

Tehran, shrouded in truly toxic smoke because the country’s power plants have run short of natural gas and begun burning “mazut, a dark residue of petroleum high in sulphur and other impurities,” is now facing a possible evacuation because it has run out of water. As Yeaganeh Torbati points out in an excellent essay, Iran’s water woes are deeply rooted in agricultural policy that prioritized irrigation above all (see also California); its international isolation has not helped it cope (including with the tragic fires that broke out last week in the Hyrcanian Forest, one of the oldest woodlands on Earth and a biodiversity hotspot). But the savage drought has been the final domino here, in a country where, as the head of one water utility points out, “Higher than normal heat has intensified the evaporation of water resources.” As the Australia Broadcasting Corporation summarized it:
Faced with a perfect storm of weather woes and decades of mismanagement, President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a warning to his country earlier this month that the situation could deteriorate even further.

“We’ve run short of water. If it doesn’t rain, we in Tehran… must start rationing,” he said.

“Even if we do ration and it still does not rain, then we will have no water at all.”

“They [citizens] must evacuate Tehran.”

While it may seem like an exaggeration, it is the shocking reality facing the Iranian population—particularly in its capital, which has in excess of 15 million people across the broader metropolitan area.

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UN Climate Chief: Refusal to Halt Planetary Destruction Will ‘Never, Ever Be Forgiven’


This particular kind of disaster is becoming more common on a rapidly warming world. We’ve already had severe Day Zero scares in big cities in Brazil and South Africa; a new study earlier this month warns that:
Moments when water levels in reservoirs fall so low that water may no longer reach homes—could become common as early as this decade and the 2030s.

To find out where and when DZDs are most likely to occur, scientists at the Center for Climate Physics in Busan, South Korea ran a series of large-scale climate simulations. They considered the imbalance between decreasing natural supply (such as years of below-average rainfall and depleted river flows).


By some estimates, 2 billion humans are at risk.

The residents of New York are not at present among them. The city’s water supply system is one of the miracles of the modern world, and after six decades the “third tunnel” that will make that water system more secure is almost complete. (As a cub reporter in the early 1980s I spent several happy days underground, watching “sandhogs” from Local 147 blowing up rock walls to extend the shaft).

But that doesn’t mean New York is immune from climate danger, as anyone who lived there during Hurricane Sandy will recall. (As the financial journal Business Week printed in block letters on its cover the week after that catastrophe, “IT’S GLOBAL WARMING STUPID”).

And it certainly doesn’t mean that New York isn’t part of the cause of the global climate collapse. Not from its emissions—subway-riding New Yorkers are fairly green—but from the churn of capital through its financial markets that underwrites the ongoing expansion of the fossil fuel enterprise, in ways that scientists have said for years now simply has to stop.

A huge step in the right direction came Wednesday morning, when the city’s comptroller, Brad Lander, announced that he was recommending the city stop investing its money with Blackrock, the largest single representative of irresponsible capitalism on planet Earth.
Lander is urging three of the city’s pension funds to drop BlackRock Inc. because of “inadequate” climate plans, the latest move to penalize investment firms for failing to tackle global warming.

The guidance to reject BlackRock, the city’s largest money manager overseeing $42.3 billion of index funds for the pensions, follows a review of the firm’s efforts to press companies to decarbonize. Lander said Wednesday he’s also asking plan trustees to terminate much smaller mandates with Fidelity Investments and PanAgora Asset Management.


It’s hard to overstate the importance of this decision. To call Blackrock a “giant” is to pitifully underestimate its size—it has $13.46 trillion under management as of this fall. It owns 10% of the world’s stock market. If it wanted to stop the expansion of the fossil fuel industry, it could, more easily than any other single entity on planet Earth.

Instead it has dithered endlessly, making occasional noises of climate concern and then backtracking when red state treasurers (with far smaller portfolios than Lander’s to wave around) squawked at them. In August, Democratic officials from a dozen states sent warning letters to asset managers, calling on them to “reject pressure from the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers, and instead commit to thorough evaluations of risks tied to global warming, supply chains, and corporate governance.” Lander’s recommendation is the first concrete outcome.

Or, fairly concrete. Lander’s term ends on December 31. The advocates who have pressed for this policy—especially New York Communities for Change—are pushing him to get one of the city’s three pension plans—the New York City Employees Retirement System or NYCERS—to actually commit to the plan at its December 17 meeting. They think that with some prodding by Lander the votes are there to make the change.

If anyone has the political credibility to get it done before Christmas, that would be Brad Lander. Though he finished third in the primary, he emerged from this year’s mayoral contest with more love than any player in the city, maybe even including Zohran Mamdani. Partly that was because stood up for immigrants early, getting arrested by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement thug. Mostly it was because he figured out he was going to lose to Mamdani, took it with exceptionally good grace, and ended up playing the important role of his being his verifier—assuring people with both his insider and his Jewish credentials that the young socialist was up to the job. He comes out of 2025 both a macher and a mensch, and now he’s rumored to be planning a run for Congress; assuming he ties up some of the loose ends here, he will take on any future race with the fervent support of the environmental community, for whom he has delivered big-time. (And with the fervent opposition of Wall Street, which is proving to be a useful credential in itself).

In a larger sense, I’ve been reading accounts for months now of how climate is dead as a political issue. I think this move makes clear that isn’t true; in fact, I’d wager that as energy affordability takes center stage in next year’s midterms, the transition off fossil fuels will be a key issue for progressives to seize.

They will need to do so quickly. As events in Tehran make clear, time is now moving fast. The physics of global warming are implacable: Run out of water and you have to move your city. We’ll have to make politicians move fast to have any hope of getting ahead of the curve.


© 2022 Bill McKibben


Bill Mckibben
Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org and ThirdAct.org. His most recent book is "Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?." He also authored "The End of Nature," "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet," and "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future."
Full Bio >

UN Report Details Israel’s ‘De Facto State Policy’ of Torturing Palestinian Prisoners

A United Nations committee found Palestinian prisoners are regularly deprived of food and water and subjected to attacks by dogs, electrocution, and sexual abuse.


A woman holds up a mobile phone showing a picture of a family member at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, on October 16, 2025, when medical teams reported signs of torture and abuse on many of the bodies returned by Israeli forces after a ceasefire was agreed to in Gaza.
(Photo by Doaa Albaz/Middle East Images via AFP)

Julia Conley
Nov 29, 2025
COMMON DREAMS


Reports of Israeli authorities torturing Palestinian prisoners have been publicized for years, with freed detainees describing frequent beatings, attacks by dogs, and rape and sexual abuse, and the United Nations Committee Against Torture now says Palestinians have been victimized by a “de facto state policy of organized and widespread torture.”

Both Palestinian and Israeli rights groups gave reports to the committee on conditions in Israeli detention centers, detailing Israel’s regular deprivation of food and water for detainees as well as the “severe beatings,” electrocution, waterboarding. and sexual violence Israeli guards and other authorities perpetrate.

At Least 98 Palestinians Died in Israeli Custody Since October 7, 2023

‘Genocide Is Not Over,’ Amnesty Leader Says as Israel Keeps Bombing Gaza

A state policy of torturing prisoners constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the committee said.

Peter Vedel Kessing, a member of the committee and a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, told the BBC the panel was “deeply appalled” by the accounts they heard, and expressed concern about the lack of investigations and prosecutions following allegations of torture.

The de facto policy of torture in Israel’s has “gravely intensified” since Israel began bombarding Gaza after a Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, the report found. Despite a ceasefire that was agreed to in October, those retaliatory attacks against the exclave are continuing and still constitute a genocide, Amnesty International said this week.

Friday’s UN report, said progressive Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, provided the latest proof that “Israel’s insidious war crimes have not subsided just because Trump succeeded in convincing Western public opinion that the genocide in Gaza has paused.”

The UN committee found that at least 75 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the Gaza war began—an “abnormally high” death toll which “appears to have exclusively affected the Palestinian detainee population.”

“To date, no state officials have been held responsible or accountable for such deaths,” said the panel.

“Israel’s insidious war crimes have not subsided just because Trump succeeded in convincing Western public opinion that the genocide in Gaza has paused.”

The report comes nearly two weeks after the Israel-based rights group Physicians for Human Rights released an analysis showing that at least 98 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli custody since October 2023.

The UN committee noted that Israel’s use of “administrative detention,” in which roughly 3,474 Palestinians are currently being held without trial, has reached an “unprecedented” level in the last two years, with children among those who have been imprisoned without charges.

Child prisoners, some of whom are under the age of 12—despite 12 being the age of criminal responsibility in Israel—“have severe restrictions on family contact, may be held in solitary confinement, and do not have access to education, in violation of international standards,” the report says.

The report was released the same day the UN Human Rights Office accused Israeli soldiers of carrying out a “summary execution” of two Palestinian men who were seen with their hands up—indicating surrender—in the West Bank.

The committee emphasized its “serious concern” that Israel has no “distinct offense criminalizing torture, and that its legislation allows public officials to be exempted from criminal culpability under the so-called ‘necessity’ defense when unlawful physical pressure is applied during interrogations.”

The report was released days after Israel was one of just three countries—along with the US and Argentina—that voted against a UN General Assembly resolution against torture.

Educators Worry Palestine Censorship Could Reshape Public Education Entirely


New efforts to shut down honest discussion of Palestine could restrict everything from literature to science classes.

By Marianne Dhenin ,

Truthout

PublishedNovember 29, 2025

Students get to work on the first day of school in Hannah Jones' 5/6 combo class at Trabuco Mesa Elementary School in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, on August 13, 2025.Paul Bersebach / MediaNews Group / Orange County Register via Getty Images


Awave of bills introduced this year in state legislatures across the country sought to censor Palestine-related education in public schools. Several passed with the support of pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers, a trend that educators and First Amendment advocates told Truthout reflects the alignment of pro-Israel groups with MAGA forces. As these efforts continue, many said they fear public education could be reshaped far beyond social studies classrooms and the topics of Israel and Palestine.

“The censorship of Palestinians is the same as the ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ and the anti-critical race theory attacks on Black history,” Nora Lester-Murad, an organizer with the #DropTheADLfromSchools effort, told Truthout. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is one of a number of pro-Israel groups supporting regressive public education legislation across the country. “Yes, it’s Zionist, and yes, it’s promoting Israel, but it’s also part of this right-wing effort to take public education in a direction that’s away from critical thinking and that’s anti-liberatory.”

This year, legislators in at least eight states — including Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Tennessee — introduced bills that would directly adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in public schools. That definition equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Dozens of civil society and rights groups, as well as unions of educators, have warned against its adoption because of its power to chill or suppress speech critical of Israel or Zionism.

Michael Berg, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in Missouri, said lawmakers who sponsored House Bill (HB) 937 seemed more committed to preventing teachers and pupils from criticizing Israel than preventing discrimination against Jewish students. “They were attached to the IHRA definition, so it shows that it’s very specifically about speech about Israel,” he said. Organizers succeeded in stopping HB 937 in Missouri this year, but Berg told Truthout they are already preparing to fight a new iteration of the bill in the upcoming legislative session.

Other states have made similar efforts, including California, where Democrats hold a supermajority in the state assembly. There, this year’s Assembly Bill (AB) 715 was the latest in a series introduced under the guise of curbing antisemitism, but whose critics argue are censorship bills that undermine the implementation of earlier legislation mandating ethnic studies courses in public schools. AB 715 does not define antisemitism, but calls for using the Biden-era United States National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism as “a basis to inform schools on how to identify, respond to, prevent, and counter antisemitism.” That white paper claims that “the United States has embraced” IHRA’s definition as a “valuable tool” in countering antisemitism. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 715 into law in October; the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a suit challenging the law in federal court in November.

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CA Educators Are Resisting Anti-Palestine Bills Pushing “Academic Police State”
Activists say the bills will make public education more hostile for people already targeted by anti-Palestinian racism. By Marianne Dhenin , Truthout  August 20, 2024

Meanwhile, this August in Massachusetts, another Democratic stronghold, the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism approved recommendations meant to curb antisemitism in schools. The recommendations call on districts to teach IHRA’s definition of antisemitism in anti-bias trainings for teachers and school administrators. A statewide coalition of labor unions, civil rights groups, and progressive Jewish organizations warned that rather than countering antisemitism, the recommendations “pit some Jewish students against other marginalized populations” and will likely “undermine safe learning and working environments for students and teachers.”

These moves dovetail with a federal agenda to remake the nation’s public schools and historical programming at other public institutions, such as museums and national parks. Since his return to office, President Donald Trump has signed executive orders demanding an end to “radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling” and “restoring truth and sanity to American history.” The administration advocates teaching a whitewashed and aggrandizing version of the nation’s past that Trump, in one executive order, called “patriotic education.”

The fact that pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers and groups that have traditionally enjoyed reputations as liberal organizations, such as the ADL, have been driving forces behind the recent spate of public education censorship bills comes as no surprise to Lara Kiswani, executive director of AROC Action and an organizer with the California Coalition to Defend Public Education (CCDPE), which mobilized against AB 715. “It’s a right-wing agenda to support genocide [and] it’s a right-wing agenda to support segregation and apartheid, so it’s not a surprise that pro-Israel interest groups, who are inherently right-wing, are aligning themselves with the MAGA interest groups across the country,” she told Truthout.

Theresa Montaño, a former public school teacher who now teaches Chicano/a Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, told Truthout the harms of this regressive legislation are already being felt. “There have been a number of incidents where teachers and educators are reported for being antisemitic, and [the IHRA] definition is the reason why,” she said. “It has already impacted the lives, reputations, and livelihoods of so many.”

Montaño was herself a named defendant in a lawsuit filed in 2022 by the Deborah Project, a pro-Israel firm, on behalf of teachers and parents who accused her and other defendants of using antisemitic content in their classrooms. That case was dismissed in November 2024, with the judge criticizing the plaintiff’s lack of evidence and unpersuasive arguments. Montaño told Truthout: “Today, it’s Palestine. Tomorrow, is it the rainbow flag on my door, the fact that I talk about settler colonialism in the southwest, [or] my Black Lives Matter poster?”

When Arizona passed a bill in May 2025 that would have adopted IHRA’s definition of antisemitism for identifying antisemitic conduct in schools, Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed it, recognizing in the wake of cases like Montaño’s that the bill was about “attacking our teachers.”

The recent wave of bills limiting Palestine-related speech in public schools also harms students. “We believe that antisemitism is being used to censor education on Palestine, and we believe that our students have a right to understand both sides of an issue,” Seth Morrison, spokesperson for JVP’s Bay Area chapter and an organizer with CCDPE, told Truthout. “We’re not saying don’t talk about Israel or don’t talk about the Holocaust. What we’re saying is that there are many open issues here and that Arab and Muslim students especially are being intimidated and censored because of IHRA and related activities.”

In California, efforts to censor Palestine in the classroom are disrupting the rollout of ethnic studies courses, meaning students are being left with fewer opportunities to learn about the communities of color that comprise almost three-quarters of the state’s student population. Since its case against Montaño, the Deborah Project has also sued the Mountain View–Los Altos High School District and the Hayward Unified School District for release of records related to ethnic studies instruction; both districts settled and agreed to cover the firm’s legal fees. This February, a suit brought by the Louis D. Brandeis Center succeeded in stopping ethnic studies instruction in the Santa Ana Unified School District.

ADC’s case against AB 715 argues the new law violates the First Amendment right of students to receive information in the classroom. “Courts have held that the right to be exposed to different viewpoints [and] to have frank and open discussions and debates … is protected in public schools under the First Amendment,” Jenin Younes, ADC’s national legal director, explained to Truthout.

Plaintiffs’ stories in that case show how Palestine-related speech arises even in unexpected places, and how censoring it could limit learning experiences. Jonah Olson, a plaintiff and middle school science teacher in Adelanto, California, told Truthout, “I don’t initiate a whole lot of political discussion in my science class, but I do try to foster, as per the NGSS framework, connections to real-world experiences, connecting those things to science and engineering practices.” California adopted its Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS, in 2015.

Recently, students in Olson’s classes have chosen to research and experiment with water desalination and food preservation after learning, Olson suspects from social media, that people in Gaza have not had adequate potable water or food while living under Israeli bombardment for the past two years. “They’re engaging in the world and seeing science and engineering questions and problems to be solved and then exercising that inquiry in the way they’re supposed to [according to NGSS],” he said. “They’re citing in their projects the real-world connection to the genocide in Gaza.”

Kiswani told Truthout stories like these reflect students’ hunger to learn and engage with real world injustices: “It’s a time now where we really have to ensure that our students are able to have a dignified experience in the classroom, but also that we don’t allow our public education system to completely be taken over by political interest groups, which would result in a very destructive and unfortunate outcome of erasure, invisibility, and lack of agency given to students who need [those things] more now than ever.”

Clownish Proscriptions: Challenging the Palestine Action Ban

by Binoy Kampmark / November 29th, 2025

On June 20, members of Palestine Action broke into a Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, going on to spray paint two military aircraft activists claimed were being used in “direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East.” This was deemed so horrible as to draw the ire of then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who went on to invoke section 3 of the Terrorism Act to proscribe the organisation.

At the time, it seemed impulsive, rash, and most likely intended to placate Israeli voices that something was being done about these bleeding hearts in Albion. Toby Cadman, Member of the International Bar Association’s War Crimes Committee Advisory Board, was in no doubt that the proscription was fashioned “as a blunt instrument to silence certain voices on Palestine at a moment when public opinion and government policy are sharply at odds.”

It did not take long for those well-versed in human rights to protest this scrappy measure as absurd and needlessly authoritarian. The UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, which counts among its members Francesca Albanese, Ben Saul, and Irene Khan, issued a press release in early July expressing its bafflement at the proscription. “According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.” Since the addition of Palestine Action to the naughty list of outlawed organisations, over 2,200 arrests have been made citing terrorism legislation, with 254 people charged with terrorism offences merely for participating in peaceful protests.

Even within government circles, this measure did not fly smoothly. That most terrier-like human rights activist and former diplomat Craig Murray got his hands on a leaked report by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) revealing that the impulsive decision to proscribe the organisation had been a fumbling episode riddled with mendacity. The JTAC could hardly be said to be devotees of Palestine Action, but they did struggle, at points, to see the alleged, outsized terrorist demon shadowing their actions. “The majority of the group’s activity would not be classified as terrorism under Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2000.”

The process is well underway to challenge the order as a breach of Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protect freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association. On October 17, the Court of Appeal confirmed that Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, could seek judicial review of the Home Office’s proscription decision. Three judges upheld the July decision by the lower court to grant judicial review, rejecting the flimsy arguments by the Home Office that Ammori could merely seek to “deproscribe” the organisation via application to the Secretary of State, then appeal further to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), if refused. This could hardly be an adequate remedy.

The appeals court also found that the Secretary of State had failed to consider that the acts of protest used by Palestine Action could not meet the criminal threshold. The wider support shown for the organisation had also been ignored. The judges further singled out a mischief common to many governments: that the addition of Palestine Action to the list of proscribed organisations was done for an improper purpose. Organisations dedicated to civil disobedience should not fall within the proscription regime, yet here we were, seeing rattled politicians terrified by the actions of a less-than-incendiary organisation.

To give the finding a fine rounding off, the judges also noted that the criminalisation of the organisation potentially breached the Equality Act 2010, notably section 149. There had been little regard paid to eliminating discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity, and fostering good relations.

The organisation has been able to count on powerful submissions to advance its cause. Liberty, the UK’s foremost domestic human rights organisation, paired with Amnesty International as intervening parties to assist the High Court in reaching its decision.

The feisty arguments of these bodies against the proscribing of Palestine Action draw from Lord Hoffman’s firm observation in a case concerning, rather strikingly, the actions of organised protesters keen to create mayhem on a US airbase. Not only did the judge refer to that “long and honourable history” of civil disobedience in the UK, but he also thought reference to the suffragettes a reliably sturdy comparison. When it came to such actions as the destruction of property, it was “the mark of a civilised community” that such protestation and demonstration could be accommodated. There was a fundamental “moral difference” between those engaged in civil disobedience and those engaged in ordinary lawbreaking.

On November 26, Raza Husain KC urged the court to consider that the proscription was “repugnant to the tradition of the common law and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.” The government had “imposed extreme measures on a protest group (which enjoyed widespread popularity among the British public) seeking to expose, protest and prevent serious violations of international law by Israel, and the complicity of the UK government and companies in the UK therewith, including by seeking to obstruct the continuing supply of weapons and components to Israel.”

Ultimately, issues of proportionality will be central to any successful judicial review. The property damage that arose in the case could not be compared with those instances counter-terrorism legislation was intended to cover, which considers the intent to commit acts of violence against people. The organisation’s object had to be considered, distinguishing aims abhorrent to a society respecting human rights from those intended to uphold international law.

Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, also intervened in the case to challenge the proscription as unlawful for being incompatible with Articles 10, 11, and 14 (the non-discrimination provision) of the ECHR, and grounds of public law.  Assistance to that end has been provided by notes from the UN special rapporteur on the rights of peaceful assembly and association, Gina Romero, and from Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur for the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

Across the globe, protests are being curtailed by jittery authorities eager to see a rabid terrorist in the clothing of a demonstrator. This clownish effort by the Starmer government against Palestine Action, one of a long and running list, has brought the importance of civil disobedience and lawful assembly to the fore. Will the high court bite?

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

Swiss voters reject mandatory national service for women and new inheritance tax

JAMEY KEATEN
November 30, 2025 
AP

A person walks past referendum posters of political parties and associations as Swiss voters are casting ballots to decide whether women, like men, must do national service in the military, civil protection teams or in other forms, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 26, 2025. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

A person walks by referendum posters of political parties and associations as Swiss voters are casting ballots to decide whether women, like men, must do national service in the military, civil protection teams or in other forms, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Nov. 26, 2025. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

GENEVA (AP) — Swiss voters on Sunday decisively rejected a call to require women to do national service in the military, civil protection teams or other forms, as men must do already.

In a referendum, over 84% of voters rejected the “citizen service initiative” and none of the country's 26 cantons, or states, came anywhere near voting in favor. Proposals need a majority of both voters and cantons to pass.

A separate proposal to impose a new national tax on individual donations or inheritances of more than 50 million francs ($62 million) was shot down by more than 78% of voters. The revenues were to be used to fight the impact of climate change and help Switzerland meet its ambitions to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Supporters of the national service plan hoped that it would boost social cohesion by adding jobs in areas like environmental prevention, food security and elderly care. But lawmakers opposed it, mainly for cost reasons and out of concern that it could hurt the economy by taking many young people out of the workforce.

The proposal came at a time when other European countries are finding ways to bolster their armed forces in the face of growing concerns about Russia's potential threat beyond the war in Ukraine.

Young men in neutral Switzerland are already required to carry out military service or join civil protection teams. Conscientious objectors can do other types of service, and those who opt out entirely must pay an exemption fee. Each year, about 35,000 men take part in mandatory service.

The failed initiative would have required all Swiss citizens to do national service — women can currently do so on a voluntary basis — and applied the concept of national security to areas beyond military service or civil protection.

Its supporters pointed to “landslides in the mountains, floods in the plains, cyberattacks, risks of energy shortages or war in Europe” and said that their plan would mean everyone taking responsibility for “a stronger Switzerland that’s able to stand up to crises.”

The government countered that the army and civil defense have enough staff, and no more people should be recruited than are needed.

While compulsory military service for women might be seen as “a step toward gender equality,” it added, the idea would “place an extra burden on many women, who already shoulder a large part of the unpaid work of raising and caring for children and relatives, as well as household tasks.”

The government also opposed the proposal for a new tax on large donations or inheritances, arguing that approval could prompt some of the wealthiest in Switzerland — an estimated 2,500 people — to move elsewhere. Sums beyond 50 million francs ($62 million) could have been hit with a 50% rate.

Switzerland holds national referendums four times a year, giving voters a direct say in policymaking.

___

Associated Press writer Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Swiss vote on compulsory civic duty, climate tax for super-rich


By AFP
November 29, 2025


Neither of the initiatives are expected to pass - Copyright AFP Fabrice COFFRINI
Nina LARSON

Switzerland votes Sunday on whether to replace the current men-only military conscription with a compulsory civic duty for men and women alike and on taxing the super-rich to fund the climate fight.

Neither initiative is expected to pass, according to recent polls, but they have generated significant discussion in the wealthy Alpine nation.

Under Switzerland’s direct democratic system, 100,000 signatures are needed to put virtually any issue to a popular vote, with the Swiss given a say on a wide range of topics every few months at the national, regional and local levels.

The Swiss government and parliament have urged voters to reject the two national items on Sunday’s ballot, arguing that they would entail huge costs and could threaten the economy.

Polling stations were to open for a few hours on Sunday morning before closing at noon (1100 GMT).

But most votes are typically cast in advance, with initial results expected by mid-afternoon.

– ‘True equality’ –

The so-called Civic Duty initiative initially garnered quite broad backing, but its support has crumbled in recent weeks, with the latest survey from market researcher gfs.bern finding that 64 percent of those polled were opposed.

The committee behind the initiative maintains that requiring every Swiss citizen, regardless of gender, to do national service in the army or in a civilian capacity would strengthen social cohesion.

The initiative aims for “true equality”, committee head Noemie Roten told AFP.

She described the current system as discriminatory — for men, but also for women, who are largely excluded from useful networks and experiences obtained during service.

“Be it in the army, civil protection, civil service or voluntary firefighters, the idea is for every young person to contribute to the collective wellbeing,” she said.

Opponents of the initiative denied it would enhance equality.

Cyrielle Huguenot, head of equality, family and migration issues at the Swiss Trade Union Federation (USS), argued that the initiative “completely obscures the reality of women in this country”.

Women already do the vast majority of unpaid tasks in Swiss society, she told AFP.

“And now you are asking women to provide even more unpaid service. This would only exacerbate the imbalance.”

– ‘Tax the rich’ –

The second item on the ballot Sunday, known as the “initiative for a future”, has also sparked controversy with its demand for a new climate tax on big inheritances.

It appears even less likely to pass, with a full 68 percent of those questioned for the latest gfs.bern poll against.

The text, put forward by the youth wing of Switzerland’s Socialist Party, calls for a 50-percent inheritance tax on fortunes above 50 million Swiss francs ($63 million) — estimated to affect some 2,500 households.

Under the slogan “tax the rich, save the climate”, the group calculates that the levy would rake in six billion Swiss francs annually, which could go towards funding an ecological transformation of Switzerland’s economy through things like renovating buildings, developing renewable energy and expanding public transportation.

A massive opposition campaign has warned that very wealthy people might leave the country to avoid the tax, weakening the economy.

People inheriting family businesses might also be hurt, critics caution.

‘End of an era’: MTV pulling plug on global music channels


By AFP
November 30, 2025


MTV in the 1980s fuelled the fame of up-and-coming singers, Madonna among them - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Dia Dipasupil

Akshata KAPOOR

MTV kick-started a new era of music and pop culture in 1981, when it went on air for the first time, emblematically playing “Video Killed the Radio Star” as its debut music video.

More than four decades later, the channel, now owned by US media giant Paramount Skydance, will wind down its international music broadcasting by the end of the year as it struggles to compete with online streaming and social media.

MTV Music, MTV Hits and its 80s and 90s music shows will be shut down in the UK and other European countries in the coming months, sources at Paramount confirmed to AFP.

These music channels will stop broadcasting at the end of the year in France, Germany, Poland, Australia and Brazil as well, according to various media reports.

It has been declared the “end of an era” by dismayed fans and former MTV video jockeys — the beloved music presenters known as VJs who appeared on millions of screens at the the height of the network’s popularity.

However, the conditions that made MTV “revolutionary” simply “don’t exist anymore”, said Kirsty Fairclough, a professor of screen studies at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The rise of digital streaming platforms like YouTube and TikTok has “completely refigured how we engage with music and images”, the researcher on popular culture told AFP.

Viewers or listeners now expect “immediacy” and “interactivity” that sitting in front of the television to watch rolling music videos cannot provide, she added.

James Hyman, who directed and produced MTV Europe’s dance music shows in the 1990s, agrees the network thrived before the internet was ubiquitous.

“It was so exciting, because that’s mainly all people had,” Hyman told AFP.

– ‘Experimentation’ –

Hyman was at the heart of MTV’s Party Zone — which celebrated dance and club culture and played up-and-coming techno, house and trance music — alongside MTV VJ Simone Angel.

Both of them left the network when MTV Europe split up into regional subsidiaries and pivoted from music programming to reality shows in the early 2000s.

“I was heartbroken when it started to split up into different regions. To me that was like the beginning of the end,” Dutch presenter Angel told AFP.

According to British audience researcher Barb, MTV Music reached around 1.3 million UK households in July 2025.

In comparison, Barb figures reported in 2001 showed MTV UK and Ireland’s package of music channels had reached over 10 million homes.

For Angel, MTV’s slow decline in popularity can be traced back to its move away from original, edgy music content key to helping smaller artists break out.

“Initially MTV Europe wasn’t just about making the most amount of money… that sense of experimentation made the channel very exciting,” said the former VJ.

Paramount has taken several cost-cutting measures since its merger with Skydance earlier this year, announcing 1,000 job cuts last month and reviewing its other cable television offerings.

Some MTV music channels will stay on air in the United States, and the flagship MTV HD channel will be available in the UK, but with a focus on entertainment rather than music.

“The ‘M’ stood for music, and that’s gone,” lamented Hyman, who has carefully stored VHS tapes of the shows he produced for Party Zone.

The tapes whir in Hyman’s VHS player at his home in London, playing clips from the 90s: intimate interviews with The Prodigy and Aphex Twin, funky, experimental music videos, and wild hairstyles.

– ‘Seismic’ influence –

The impact of MTV and MTV Europe was “seismic” in its heyday, said Fairclough, bringing both famous and up-and-coming artists into the homes of music fans around the world.

“It definitely marks the end of an era in how music is experienced, both visually and culturally, because MTV really fundamentally reshaped popular music,” she said.

Moments like the premiere of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” performance at the first MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) in 1984 shaped the cultural conversation.

“MTV was so powerful it defined youth culture,” said Hyman, recalling its sweeping influence on fashion, film and music in Britain and Europe.

Ever since news broke that the music channels were facing the axe, Hyman and Angel have been urging Paramount to make archive tapes available to the public, insisting that people still want their MTV.

“To me it almost feels like MTV has been on life support for such a long time,” said Angel.

“But now that they’re actually threatening to pull the plug, we have all suddenly realised… this means too much to us.”

Electric vehicle prowess helps China’s flying car sector take off


By AFP
November 30, 2025


Employees work on the assembly line for the electric flying car at a factory of Xpeng's subsidiary Aridge - Copyright AFP/File Jade GAO

Luna LIN

A worker in white gloves inspects the propellers of a boxy two-seater aircraft fresh off the assembly line at a Chinese factory trialling the mass production of flying cars.

Globally, technical and regulatory challenges have prevented the much-hyped flying car sector from getting off the ground.

But Chinese companies are building on rapid development of drones and electric vehicles (EVs) in the world’s second-largest economy, while harnessing government support for the futuristic inventions.

“China has the potential to establish a competitive edge” for flying cars, said Zhang Yangjun, a professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Vehicle and Mobility.

“Future competition will increasingly hinge upon cost control and supply-chain efficiency, and these are areas where China holds clear advantages,” he told AFP.

At the brightly lit factory in the southern industrial heartland of Guangzhou, logistics robots zip around ferrying unfinished parts.

The lightweight six-propeller aircraft under construction take off vertically and fit into a large car, to create the “Land Aircraft Carrier” — a modular flying vehicle made by Aridge, an arm of Chinese EV maker XPeng.

The flying part is stored and charged in a wheeled on-land vehicle dubbed “the mothership”.

At full capacity, the Aridge factory can churn out one every 30 minutes. It began its trial production phase in early November and the company plans to start deliveries next year, saying it has had more than 7,000 pre-orders.

– James Bond –

But there is a long way to go before flying cars are whizzing through the air every day.

“Regulations, the consumer’s comfort with this product, and also how you manage airspaces, your supply chains, all need to catch up gradually,” Michael Du, vice president of Aridge, told reporters at a recent event.

Competition is heating up among global tech giants over the future of aerial mobility, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk teasing the debut of a flying car prototype within weeks.

“If you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that,” Musk told the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

American aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss debuted the first flying car prototype in 1917.

But successful designs have only become possible in recent years as electric motors and high-performance batteries have advanced.

Major players in the sector have conducted manned test flights, including California-based companies Joby and Archer, as well as Aridge, EHang and Volant in China.

This year EHang became the world’s first flying car company to be fully approved for commercial operation, something Aridge has yet to achieve.

EHang plans to introduce an air taxi service, priced similarly to a premium road taxi, within three years.

“Flying cars remain at an early developmental stage,” said Zhang, who edited a white paper on China’s flying car industry.

He still sees the sector as worthy of long-term endeavour, and authorities agree.

– Low-altitude economy –

Beijing has named the “low-altitude economy” — flying cars, drones and air taxis — as a strategic field for the next five years, seeking to accelerate their development.

Provincial governments from Guangdong to Sichuan have pledged to loosen restrictions.

A Boston Consulting Group report said China’s flying car market is approaching “a critical inflection point”, and predicted it will be worth $41 billion by 2040.

However, the sector has struggled to find viable business models elsewhere, with several high-profile insolvencies in Europe, and leading US players burning through cash with plans for mass production yet to materialise.

Direct comparisons between the sector in China and other international markets is tricky.

But “in terms of the EV supply chain, China is far in the lead”, said Brandon Wang, a Beijing-based investor whose portfolio includes AI, robotics and flying cars.

Flying cars can use EV parts once they are certified for aviation use, which may help Chinese companies scale up.

China also has an “engineer dividend” that allows its companies to quickly solve technical issues in the production process, Wang added.

C.R.T.

Black History Has the Power to Ignite Movements. That’s Why the Right Fears It.

The administration’s pre-emptive assault on history is a desperate attempt to stop new social movements from starting.

By Nicholas Powers ,

Truthout

November 29, 2025

A visitor browses an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on August 28, 2025, in Washington, D.C.Alex Wong / Getty Images

Ilooked at the slave shackles in the exhibit. My ancestors wore chains like this one. A bone-deep sorrow hit. When I researched my family history, names began to vanish as I traced it to Indigenous and African slavery. Here, right in front of me was material proof of the horror they survived. What is my responsibility to them?

The Slavery and Freedom exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C. is a soul-shaking experience. Going from the bottom level to the higher exhibits, visitors take the journey from slavery to freedom. I went years ago, and decided to go again with family and friends. During the government shutdown, the closed museum doors were symbolic of a larger right-wing attack. Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have censored Black history, pulled Black books, removed Black Lives Matters icons, and led to a mass firing of Black federal employees.

The right wing suppresses Black history because it ignites social movements. Black history transforms rage into activism by putting racist events into a larger story of struggle against oppression. It shines a light on a hidden past. It exposes the hypocrisy of MAGA.

The right-wing attack on Black history is stupid, cruel, and futile. The logical end of censoring Black history is national suicide. Black history is a legacy with lessons that can heal the divides in the U.S. and repair our relationship to the world. Black history can free us from the right-wing image of the U.S. as a white Christian nationalist utopia, which never existed, and lead us to a clear-eyed radical realism. Black history bears a truth that makes it possible, finally, to create a future we can live in as liberated beings.


Trump’s War on Black America



Related Story

Interview |
Black History Testifies to the Impossible Creative Power of Black Resistance
Literary scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin discusses how Black yearning keeps surviving in the face of racist violence. By George Yancy , Truthout  February 23, 2025

Trump and MAGA are waging war on Black America. They have attacked it on three fronts; Black culture, Black economics, and voting rights. The attack on history is the most dangerous, because history gives birth to new protests.

Black history bears a truth that makes it possible, finally, to create a future we can live in as liberated beings.

In March, federal workers aimed jackhammers at the Black Lives Matter mural — blocks from the White House — and destroyed it. Less than a mile away, the African American Museum of D.C. was closed during the shutdown and has only recently reopened.

Trump came out the gate of his second presidency with a barrage of executive orders. One executive order titled “Ending Racial Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” led to Black-authored books being yanked from school libraries run by the Department of Defense. Trump shut down diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. He terrified business leaders with possible DEI investigations. Black history month celebrations were cancelled at federal agencies.

In a perverse kind of trickle-down racism, Trump’s attack on Black Lives Matter became a permission structure for increased on-the-ground bigotry. White influencers proudly wore blackface for Halloween. Politico exposed a Young Republicans’ chat where they gleefully traded racist comments. Black comedian W. Kamau Bell has painted a portrait of a right-wing shift in standup performances in which anti-trans jokes and anti-Black slurs have become commonplace. This is not a series of isolated events: FBI statistics on anti-Black hate crime, consistently the most common form of hate crime, spiked during Trump’s two terms.

Side by side with the cultural attack is an economic one. Remember Elon Musk proudly waving a chainsaw at CPAC? Well, it worked. Black women’s unemployment leapt from 5.9 percent in February to 7.5 percent in September. Trump’s cuts to the federal workforce and attacks on “DEI” forced 300,000 Black women out of their jobs. Put that number next to the 2003 statistic that 64 percent of Black families are led by a single parent, most of whom are single mothers, and the effects are devastating. Women are now trying to hold families together without work or health care.

When seen in that light, a closed history museum may seem to be at the bottom of the list of things to worry about. Yet a living relationship to history has the power to create a political consciousness for resistance. The ripping up of Black Lives Matter’s art, the censoring of Black books, the effort to whitewash Black history — all are part of a desperate attempt to stop a new social movement before it starts.

The Past Transforms Us

Emmett Till’s casket was right there, and no one could speak. I stood with visitors to the African American Museum in D.C., and the “Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom” exhibit that highlights the Civil Rights Era weighed on us. To be in the presence of history, to be inches away from the casket that Emmett Till lay in, was dizzying.

The ripping up of Black Lives Matter’s art, the censoring of Black books, the effort to whitewash Black history — all are part of a desperate attempt to stop a new social movement before it starts.

Trump actually visited the museum in 2017 and in a somber tone, said, “This museum is a beautiful tribute to so many American heroes, heroes like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass.” Eight years later, in August 2025, Trump posted on Truth Social, “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was…” Well, that’s a 180-degree turn.

Why the change? Two events upset Trump’s first term: COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter. Protests against police brutality have been ocean tides in the Black Freedom Struggle, of which BLM is the most recent wave.

Black protests against police brutality go far back. We see it in Abolitionists fighting the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and we see resistance in the Red Summer of 1919. Racist brutality sparked the Harlem riots of 1935 and 1943. In 1991, the police beating of Rodney King led to the L.A. riots. In 1999 the police murder of Amadou Diallo and the 2006 killing of Sean Bell launched marches. Wave after wave reached higher and higher. In 2020, BLM became a tsunami of protest, the largest in U.S. history — and it was also strong enough to carry voters to the polls and throw Trump out of office.

The Black Freedom Movement has more power than any president or any system. Trump knows this. MAGA knows this. This is why they erase Black history. The past transforms us, it fires up dormant desires. It realigns us with our ancestors. Black artists and intellectuals always documented the dramatic effect of learning about Black history.

Assata Shakur wrote in her 1988 autobiography, Assata, “I didn’t know what a fool they made of me until I grew up and started reading real history.”

Malcolm X wrote in his 1965 classic, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, “History had been ‘whitened’ in the white man’s history books and the black man had been brainwashed for hundreds of years.”

From Frederick Douglass to Dead Prez, Ida B. Wells to Alicia Garza, knowing one’s history has always been the key ingredient to activating Black consciousness.

The Black thinker who systemized this transformation is Dr. William E. Cross in his 1971 essay, “The Negro-to-Black Conversion Experience.” Cross had a front-row seat to the 1968 climax of rebellion. He repeatedly saw apolitical brothers and sisters sparked by the revolution; they shed old lives, old fashions, and old ideas, and re-emerged in the street, wearing afros and bright pan-African colors. They went through stages like a butterfly molting in a cocoon, flying out, free as themselves.

Black history is the cocoon; it is the stories and imagery, the feeling of ancestors, it is the site of transformation. When millions upon millions undergo that change, like during the George Floyd protests, it becomes a historical force. A meteorologist, trying to show how interconnected all things are, once said that a flap of a butterfly’s wings can set off a tornado. It’s true. Why? The more that racists try to repress our history, the more we use it to explain what is happening, and how to fight back. The next social movement is already beginning, like a tornado.

As Pressure Builds, More Will Find Our History

When I finished my tour of the African American Museum, I was at the top floor. Sunlight came through the windows. The building is designed to recreate the journey from slavery to freedom. Standing at the top, I felt deeply moved.

Black history is the cocoon; it is the stories and imagery, the feeling of ancestors, it is the site of transformation.

The power of history, especially at a museum, is that right there under glass is evidence of our past. Flesh fades to dust. Bones crumble. Yet here are real things touched by real people. This is why the African American Museum in D.C. is the crown jewel of a large network of Pan-African historical sites. In New York, there’s the African Burial Ground. In Boston, there’s the Black Heritage Trail. In Tennessee, there’s the National Civil Rights Museum. In Ghana, there are slave castles and the heart-wrenching Door of No Return. The interconnected network of sites creates multiple transformation zones, where people enter and come out changed. When we leave, we take this history with us.

The tragedy of this moment is that Trump and MAGA have succumbed to a juvenile, cartoon version of history. If they turn back time, they believe, the joy of unlimited power will be at their fingertips. The harder they push for total control, the more pressure they place on masses of people. The government shutdown worsened hunger. People in the U.S. are facing even more unpayable health insurance. Rage at ICE builds in neighborhoods as masked agents separate families.

Under this pressure, many are forced to ask questions. When they do, they will find answers waiting for them. They will find our history.

Expect more tornados to come.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Nicholas Powers
Nicholas Powers is the author of Thirst, a political vampire novel; The Ground Below Zero: 9/11 to Burning Man, New Orleans to Darfur, Haiti to Occupy Wall Street; and most recently, Black Psychedelic Revolution. He has been writing for Truthout since 2011. His article, “Killing the Future: The Theft of Black Life” in the Truthout anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? coalesces his years of reporting on police brutality.