It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Rare Wu-Tang Clan album ‘Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' to be played more widely
The sole copy of the unique piece of art and music history was first purchased by infamous hedge fund co-founder and drug executive Martin Shkreli in 2015.
Photo by: Pleasr/ Museum of Old and New Art/ Jon Lynn "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin," 2015, by the Wu-Tang Clan.
It's not only a rare piece of hip-hop history, but of art history as well, as the Wu-Tang Clan’s rare singular copy of their “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” album is set to finally be played more widely in a public setting for the first time.
Australia’s Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania will play the world’s only copy of the fabled seventh studio album recorded in secret by the Wu-Tang Clan, giving fans and art enthusiasts a chance to hear it — or, “at least some of it,” the museum said.
Curators at the museum said they plan to host a series of listening events where “a lucky few” will get to experience a selection of tracks on the album, calling it a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. The museum isn’t planning to charge for tickets but is handing them out on a limited basis, and is limiting tickets to a maximum of two per person.
It was unclear if there would be plans to open up the listening schedule to allow more people to experience the album. The event was scheduled for June 15 – 24, with two listening times in the afternoon on those days.
Entrepreneur Martin Shkreli, the album’s first buyer, was forced to give it to U.S. prosecutors in 2018 when he was convicted of defrauding investors. It was later sold to the art collective Pleasr.
The Federal Trade Commission, which highlighted Shkreli's infamous moniker “Pharma Bro,” said a court ruled he would face a lifetime ban from participating in the pharmaceutical industry after he was found liable for “$64.6 million in disgorgement for his role in orchestrating an illegal anticompetitive scheme.”
Federal authorities said they would also seize a Picasso painting and a Lil Wayne album titled “Tha Carter V” at the time if necessary to satisfy a forfeiture judgment.
Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison for what the Justice Department called a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.
Pleasr reportedly paid an intermediary $4 million for the Wu-Tang Clan album.
RZA, who produced the album that has now seen a list of eclectic owners, wanted it to be seen as a piece of rare, fine art history. Only a small number of people are said to have heard even just small portions of its 31 tracks. Shkreli only heard a 13-minute portion along with other potential buyers in 2015 before buying it for $2 million, then later streaming clips of it on YouTube to celebrate former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory, Vulture reported.
Founded in New York’s Staten Island, the American rap group Wu-Tang Clan is seen as revolutionizing hip-hop as they dominated the genre in the 1990s.
Their style has been said to use a mix of neo-Islamic mysticism along with kung fu lore, adding a complexity to the rap field.
Tuesday, June 04, 2024
THE CONTRADICTION OF ZIONISM
Rhetoric of Zionist early European ideologues is why Zionism acts the way it does and why Palestinian resistance is inherent to it.
“Immigrants are unarmed; settlers come armed with both weapons and a nationalist agenda… for settlers, there can be no homeland without a state. For the immigrant, the homeland can be shared; for the settler, the state must be a nation-state, a preserve of the nation in which all others are at most tolerated guests.”
Mahmood Madani, Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities
“Some of our prosperous men may say that the pressure is not yet severe enough to justify emigration, and that every forcible expulsion shows how unwilling our people are to depart… But we are showing them the way to the Promised Land; and the splendid force of enthusiasm must fight against the terrible force of habit.”
Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat)
“Go, peoples, take this land! Who owns it? No one! Take this land that is God’s land. God gives land to men. God offers Africa to Europe. Take it!”
Victor Hugo, quoted by Achile Mbembe in Critique of Black Reason
“The soil does not belong to those who possess land in excess but to those who do not possess any…And if such a big landowning nation resists which is perfectly natural — it must be made to comply by compulsion. Justice that is enforced does not cease to be justice.”
Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, The Ethics of the Iron Wall
As Israel’s murderous war on Gaza enters the eighth month, it is nonetheless failing on three central metrics of any armed conflict: operational, diplomatic and politico-strategic.
Operationally, Israel fields a modern military with the advantage of sophisticated hardware and technology. It also possesses and has demonstrated impressive intelligence capabilities for targeted strikes, as witnessed against Hezbollah and Iran.
Hamas at best is akin to light infantry. It is inferior in the number of active fighters and has limited access to even basic equipment. Unlike Israel, which is supported by the United States and uses American weapons supplies to replenish its stocks, Hamas does not have a sustained supply of materiel and relies on innovation — jerry-rigging, cannibalisation, reverse-engineering and repurposing equipment.
So, why is the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) still unable to defeat Hamas?
Despite claims of having cleared Gaza city and northern Gaza, the IOF is back in Jabalia and Nusairat and fighting close-quarter battles with Hamas fighters. The world was told that the Rafah operation in the south was necessary to finish off the remaining four Hamas battalions. But the toughest battles are raging in northern Gaza.
Three elements are central to any armed conflict: sustainment, the will to fight and force employment. Of these, taking the ability to sustain the fight both in terms of materiel and morale as constant, force employment stands out as the most vital element. How do you neutralise the adversary’s advantage and create your own asymmetric advantage?
Consider a children’s tale by Aesop to understand this. North Wind and Sun were quarrelling about which one was stronger. As the argument became heated, Sun spotted a traveller and said to North Wind, “Let’s agree that he is the stronger who can strip that traveller of his cloak.”
Israel stands internationally isolated after eight months of a genocidal assault on Occupied Palestine. And despite laying most of Gaza to waste and obliterating the lives of tens of thousands, it is nowhere near its stated aim of crushing Hamas. To truly understand the Zionist settler-colonial mindset, one must look at the rhetoric of its early European ideologues. It is why Zionism acts the way it does and why Palestinian resistance is inherent to it…
North Wind agreed and sent cold gusts towards the traveller, increasing the strength of the gusts gradually. But the stronger the gusts of winds became, the more tightly the traveller wrapped his cloak around him. Seeing this, Sun began to shine and slowly increased the temperature until the traveller, feeling hot, removed his cloak.
How did Sun win? More aptly, why did North Wind lose? It lost because it got into a contest on Sun’s terms, a contest it was fated to lose even before it had begun. Force employment is meant to avoid just that. That’s what Hamas has done. It knew that its military attack on Palestinian land occupied by Israel would beget a response. It prepared patiently, letting the beast sleep until the time was ripe to lure in and slay the beast.
The operational details of how Hamas has fought and is fighting are outside the scope of this article. But it is important to note that, at the kinetic level, it has managed to sustain its effort, both in terms of morale and materiel, and used ingenious force employment methods, including the subterranean advantage, to deny the IOF sledgehammer concentrated targets — emerge, attack, elude. Ensure that there’s no front and secure rear in this environment. Use IOF’s bombing to its advantage by using destroyed buildings and rubble as fighting positions.
At the non-kinetic level, IOF’s bombing has increased Israel’s isolation. It’s a Catch-22. To send in ground troops, the IOF must soften the area; softening the areas kills civilians; killing civilians begets international outrage.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fighters, meanwhile, hunker down before emerging, engaging, neutralising targets and disappearing. US intelligence estimates, as reported by a recent Politico report, also state that “Hamas has been able to recruit during wartime — thousands over the last several months. That has allowed the group to withstand months of Israeli offensives.”
Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky (standing in the centre in the second row) at a Revisionist Zionist conference in Paris in the 1920s: Jabotinsky was unapologetic about “Zionist colonisation” and believed there must be a separation between Jews and Arabs
| Harvard Library
DIPLOMATIC NIGHTMARES
At the diplomatic and politico-strategic levels, Israel is now in the doghouse. The UN General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted in favour of full state status for Palestine; three European states — Ireland, Norway and Spain — have recognised Palestine, while four others, Belgium, France, Slovenia and Malta, have indicated that they would do so at the appropriate time.
The International Court of Justice is hearing South Africa’s petition against Israel and, in response to South Africa’s second prayer to prevent a human catastrophe, has issued specific and legally binding orders for Israel, measures the latter must take urgently. If Israel does not stop the Rafah offensive, it would be further digging the hole it finds itself in.
The European diplomatic push comes months after the Pink Tide leaders in Latin America — Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Brazil — bitterly criticised Israel for unleashing its savage war machine in Gaza, with Bolivia and Colombia severing diplomatic ties with Israel. Colombia has also announced it will open its embassy in Ramallah in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The important point to note is that Latin America historically has had close ties with Israel.
The term “genocide” is now standard fare in describing Israel’s actions in Gaza and it is not just employed by fiery university students in all corners of the world, but by leaders of governments. At the United Nations and its aid agencies, Israel receives daily whacking, prompting its permanent representative, Gilad Erdan, to resort to theatrics, tired shibboleths about anti-semitism, and language that can only be described as rabid.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor’s announcement that he is seeking arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its defence minister Yoav Gallant has been widely lauded by former ICC prosecutors and has put European countries in a quandary. Germany, Israel’s closest ally, which considers Israel’s security as Germany’s Staatsräson (reason of state), knows that, if the warrants come through, it will be legally bound to arrest Netanyahu if the latter sets foot in Germany.
While the world will shrink for Netanyahu and Gallant by 124 states, it also has the potential to divide Europe internally and also create a divide between the US and Europe. A New Statesman columnist Wolfgang Munchau put it thus: “If the Israeli leader was found guilty of war crimes, where would that leave Europeans who supplied weapons to him?”
Meanwhile, an “investigation by The Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, [reveals] how multiple Israel intelligence agencies ran a covert ‘war’ against the ICC for almost a decade”.
The report reveals how former Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, stalked and threatened the former ICC Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to prevent her from opening a formal investigation “into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories”. The fig leaf covering the musty underbelly of Israel’s settler-colonial practices has come off.
When the current war started, another iteration of a long-running war imposed on the Palestinians by the settlers, many observers were sceptical of what Hamas could achieve or why Hamas did what it did. I wrote about the second- and third-order effects of such struggles and argued that long wars are fought through many battles, that victory and defeat are often subjective terms, because war usually does not deliver clarity.
But those initial discussions ignored an even more important fact: the pre-October 7 ecosystem in which the Hamas attack happened. To understand that ecosystem we have to go back in time.
ALTNEULAND VERSUS THE IRON WALL
The effusive Reschid Bey is the only Palestinian voice in the ‘father of Zionism’ Theodor Herzl’s 1902 utopian novel, Altneuland [The Old-New Land]. The novel, not particularly of much literary merit, appeared six years after Herzl’s pamphlet, The Jewish State.
The two chief protagonists of the novel, Kingscourt, a Prussian aristocrat and Friedrich Loewenberg, a young Jewish Viennese intellectual, return to Palestine after spending 20 years on a Pacific island during which time they were cut off from civilisation. Twenty years earlier, they had stopped over in Jaffa and found the place sparsely populated and backward.
Upon their return, they are in for a surprise. The land has changed. It is modern, clean and organised and governed on rational, scientific bases, the epitome of how Austro-Hungarian Herzl described his notion of a Jewish state: “The Society will have scientific and political tasks, for the founding of a Jewish State…presupposes the application of scientific methods.” Everyone has equal rights, as Reschid tells Kingscourt when the latter says, “You’re queer fellows, you Moslems. Don’t you regard these Jews as intruders?”
“You speak strangely, Christian,” responds the friendly Reschid. “Would you call a man a robber who takes nothing from you, but brings you something instead? The Jews have enriched us. Why should we be angry with them?”
While Loewenberg and Kingscourt are touring this changed land and landscapes under the ‘New Society’, the land is gearing up for an election. A serpent has entered this Eden.
The serpent is a new immigrant, a fanatical rabbi by the name of Dr Geyer, a Dickensian aptronym since it means vulture [geier] in German. Rabbi Geyer’s new party demands the disenfranchisement of all Arabs and non-Jews in the land. In a Jewish state, citizenship and voting rights should be restricted to Jews, he argues. The Old-New Land’s liberals fight Geyer and his party tooth and nail. Geyer’s party is defeated and he leaves the Old-New Land in ignominy.
Compare this utopia with Israel’s dystopian reality. But a closer look at Altneuland tells us that Dr Geyer is not the only serpent in Eden.
The “filthy, dismal-looking hovels”, the Palestinian villages, have been razed, replaced by a ‘New Village’, in keeping with the civilisational project of the incoming Jewish people, the project grounded in rationality and scientific advancement. While leaders of the ‘New Society’ extend their noblesse oblige to the natives and everyone lives in Altneuland in equality, the Land itself must transform into a messianic civilisational project for the rest of the world.
In an incisive long piece titled The Dream of a Jewish State, American political scientist Barnett Rubin refers to Herzl’s famous line “Im Tirzu, Ein Zo Agadah [If you will it, it is no dream],” and argues, “A more truthful epigraph [to Altneuland] would have been, ‘Though you will it, it is still a dream.’ Now the dreamers are awakening, uncomprehending, to the fury and agony of those their dream erased” [italics added].
Herzl died 13 years before French diplomat Jules Cambon wrote to Polish Zionist Nahum Sokolow, expressing the sympathetic views of the French government towards “Jewish colonisation in Palestine.” This was in May 1917, six months before the infamous Balfour Declaration.
Cambon’s letter mentions “by the protection of Allied Powers”, a clear indication that Britain was not acting alone in a scheme that was the direct product as much of Western colonisation of Palestinian land as it was of resolving Europe’s “Jewish Question.” Sokolow would go on to translate Herzl’s Altneuland into Hebrew, giving it the title Tel [ancient mound] Aviv [new spring].
Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, political paterfamilias of right-wing Israeli political party Likud and supreme commander of the terrorist group Irgun, was more forthright and unapologetic about “Zionist colonisation.” Jews must be the majority; there must be an “iron wall” separating Jews from Arabs and “justice” must be enforced — once the wall has been built and the Jews are strong, Arabs would come and sue for peace and accept the terms of co-existence as dictated by the Jewish state.
Regardless of how one looks at it, whether in terms of Herzl’s utopia or Jabotinsky’s iron wall, sovereignty must rest with the majority Jewish population. In Altneuland, the Arabs and non-Jews are subsumed in the broader civilisational project of the ‘New Society’; Jabotinsky separates Arabs from the majority Jews with a wall, but implicitly and explicitly situates sovereignty in the Jewish state.
Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, makes two important points in his 2020 book Neither Settler Nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities: there’s no distinction between nationalism and colonialism, and nationalism at its core is a violent project, which in extreme cases results in genocide.
“Zionisation is more than a matter of law,” he writes. “As a nation-state project, it also involves the collapse of state and society into a single entity. To be a Zionist is not just to believe that Israel should be the Jewish national home; it is to equate the Jewish people with the state of Israel. Preserving Jewish society means preserving the Jewish state.”
And how is this state to be preserved, especially when it is a settler-colonial project? Through force, if necessary. And it can’t be a halfway house.
As Jabotinsky put it: “Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population — behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.”
The wall is a metaphor for dominance and protection — measures physical, legal, economic and military to keep Arabs subjugated. Here Jabotinsky seems to ignore his own rather incisive assessment — “Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim. It lies in the very nature of things, and in this particular regard nature cannot be changed.”
The wall around Gaza, put up by Yitzhak Rabin, the man who “wanted peace” but wouldn’t let Palestinians have sovereignty, was called the Iron Wall by some, an ironic reference to the title of Jabotinsky’s essay. If Jabotinsky were alive, he would have understood the prescience of his own words on the day Hamas breached the wall.
An Israeli soldier stands guard along the Israel-Gaza border: the wall around Gaza, put up by Yitzhak Rabin, was called the Iron Wall by some, an ironic reference to the title of Jabotinsky’s essay | AP
LONG WAR AND ITS MANY BATTLES
Mamdani, in the work cited above, argues that the struggle, and with it the intractable Jews/Arabs problem, can be resolved through the South African experience — “I point to de-Zionisation, which would sever the state from the nation. The heart of de-Zionisation is the realisation of Israel as a state for all its citizens. I look to the South African moment as a model for de-Zionisation.”
The idea merits a broader discussion, not just to look at solutions through the South African model, but also in terms of putting to rest the hollow shibboleth of a two-state solution, which the PLO squandered with the Oslo Agreements when it accepted existence as a mere satrap of the Jewish state.
The ecosystem has, however, undergone tremendous changes. Ben Gurion’s socialist Zionism is a thing of the past. We now have the ultra right-wing nationalists and religious Zionists exercising power in Israel. The Arab-Israeli contest is unfolding along the lines of Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic, between two “self-consciousnesses.” The encounter leads to a life-and-death struggle, not just because each self-consciousness sees the other as a threat to itself, but also because winning is self-affirmation.
This is where Hamas comes in. For any state actor to genuinely try and resolve the situation, it must first accept Hamas. Not only as an armed resistance group, but also as a political reality; second, such state actor must accept that Hamas’ actions have a historical context — an ecosystem of apartheid. To dismiss Hamas as a “terrorist” group is not just semantics but also the exercise of power by the dominant states.
Language is power. Any serious student of Palestinian history knows the violence did not begin on October 7 and to focus on that day is a deliberate attempt by Western governments and Israel to control the narrative by pushing a lie.
Israel has used slow, structured violence against Palestinians, not just in Gaza but across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) since the Nakba, a term universalised by Syrian scholar Constantin Zureik. These facts are known but swept under the carpet in the service of an ugly settler-colonial project that not only stands out as the past symbol of the West’s dominance, but also its current geopolitical interests.
Hamas challenges both the symbol and its physical reality. The talk about defeating Hamas and to have a day-after which has no Hamas presence is buncombe at best and mendacious at worst. To think that Gaza — even OPTs — can be governed without Hamas or through an Arab or multinational force begotten of a packaged process of normalisation with Saudi Arabia is delusional nonsense.
The United States and its allies — as also some in Israel, including the less fanatic Israeli leaders — seem to think that things can go back to normal, the normal being a Jewish state secure from Palestinian resistance to occupation, without settling the issue of Palestinian sovereignty.
This thinking is not only deceitful, it is dangerous. And it is couched in insincere statements about the plight of Gazans (with nary a mention of what’s happening in the West Bank) while parroting the line about destroying Hamas. Just one fact should disabuse anyone of this thinking — three adult sons and four grandchildren of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh killed on Eid-ul Fitr by the IOF in the rubbled streets of Shati refugee camp.
This is about leadership, about being part of Gaza, about living and dying with everyone else — about being from the soil. No revamped configuration of the Palestinian Authority can rule Gaza in conjunction with some Arab states. Nor can Israel go back to Jabotinsky’s iron wall and its ethics. The wall has been breached. To perch schemes on the wall is either a blunder of epic proportions or deliberate travesty of all available facts.
NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL
In March this year, Poland’s recently elected prime minister said, in at least two interviews, that Europe is in a “pre-war era” reminiscent of 1939. He was referring to Russia’s gains in Ukraine. The three Baltic Republics are getting nervous by the day. Others, such as Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia have pro-Russian leaders in the lead. Hungary will also get the EU’s rotating presidency in June.
By all evidence, the far-right parties are in ascendance in Europe. The Freedom Party in Austria and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France do not view Russia as an acute security risk. But whether pro- or anti-Russia, the far right parties in Europe are poised to advance their nationalist agendas and to that extent weaken the EU. It remains to be seen if Europe can realistically be referred to as a collective noun, especially if the war in Ukraine continues to tilt in favour of Russia.
Across the Atlantic, US domestic politics is in a tailspin and President Joe Biden in a zugzwang. If he supports Israel (which he does), he loses a large chunk of the Democratic Party’s liberal and progressive vote. If he gets tough on Israel, he gives the Republicans and Donald Trump a stick to beat him with. The irony is that, regardless of who wins, American politics and society will be further polarised.
The US’s increasingly acrimonious rivalry with China is further muddying the geopolitical waters. Multiple developments, often not perceptibly linked, are poised to reset the geopolitical chessboard. Palestinian resistance, of which Hamas is the sharp end of the wedge, has therefore to be seen both in its immediate and broader contexts.
“I mean to speak
Of that interminable building rear’d
By observation of affinities
In objects where no brotherhood exists
To common minds.“
— William Wordsworth, The Prelude
The writer is a journalist interested in security and foreign policies. X: @ejazhaider Published in Dawn, EOS, June 2nd, 2024
Header image: Mourners react during a funeral in Rafah on May 27, 2024 for Palestinians killed after an Israeli strike: Israel’s actions against Palestinians reflect the mindset of Zionism’s early ideologues | Reuters
Friday, May 24, 2024
‘Let’s challenge the false economic narratives’ – Grace Blakeley & Jeremy Corbyn
You have a very powerful collective organisation at the top of society and then an isolated, atomised mass of people everywhere else… The alternative is to say lets get together and do this ourselves – let’s join in and participate in political movements.
Grace Blakeley
Ben Hayes reports from the latest Arise Festival event ‘Jeremy Corbyn and Grace Blakeley in Conversation’ held to celebrate the launch of Grace’s new book: Vulture Capitalism – Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts and the Death of Freedom.
Over 2,500 people joined an online forum hosted by Arise: A Festival of Left Ideas between economist Grace Blakeley and MP for Islington North Jeremy Corbyn to discuss her book Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom. Introduced by Arise’s Matt Willgress, attendees to the event reported tuning in from 57 different constituencies and 9 countries across the world.
Blakeley outlined how she sought to ‘challenge some of the biggest false narratives around economics’ with the book, including that socialism is purely defined by large state involvement in the economy and that capitalism can fundamentally be relied upon to deliver freedom. Emphasising the importance of analysing whose interests the state serves to understanding an economy, she pointed to an example of multinational corporation in aerospace manufacturer Boeing, arguing that its ties to the US government and military illustrated how many of those who profit the most from the American economy receive significant help along the way. Blakeley also reflected on the role of culture in maintaining the existing system- pointing out that whilst those in power keep it “through cooperation and class solidarity”, whilst promoting “individualism and division” to the majority- and called for an alternative base of pressure to be built up representing their interests.
Corbyn echoed this critique of the US economy’s relationship to the concept of freedom, and pointed to a domestic example of the post-privatisation water industry as an example of a “toxic” link between the government and large private firms. Praising Vulture Capitalism for “calling into question many of the common economic assumptions”, he called for socialists to build greater clarity on the model that they are seeking to develop. Corbyn also shared the emphasis on the role of culture in both maintaining and changing existing orders, highlighting the potential role of the trade union movement and its profile in wider society to “help build a world of solidarity” instead of “worshipping individual wealth and sharp elbows”.
Questions raised by those watching online covered topics including the government’s promotion of Freeports and Special Economic Zones, the economic policy of a likely Labour government, how the left can get its arguments out in the media, building participation in mass organisations, the 1976 Lucas Plan, international co-operation, democratic reforms, and building a culture of unity.
Blakeley argued that the creation of Freeports and Special Economic Zones illustrated how freedom for capital is prioritised above all else, and also emphasised the importance of understanding imperialism to any serious economic analysis. Calling for the left to throw itself into institutions based on collective interests, she warned that without a movement for positive change rooted in communities the growth of reactionary politics was likely.
Corbyn slammed Freeports as “being based on the illusion of development when in reality they represent an abdication of responsibility”, and called for “a message based on hope”- reflecting on how during his time as Leader of the Labour Party he aimed to make it a “community-based force”. Noting the successes of the social movement model of Brazilian trade unionism in defeating the Bolsonaro government, he raised the possibility of calling ‘People’s Forums’ in developing a sense of shared interest and participation. After commending Blakeley’s book for “giving us a greater understanding of the situation”, he concluded by stating that it was “our job to turn it around”. You can watch the full event below.
You can watch the full event on YouTube here or listen back on the Arise Festival podcast here.
You can buy Grace Blakeley’s book, Vulture Capitalism, here.
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Volunteers race to save Mexico's howler monkeys in heat wave Comalcalco (Mexico) (AFP) – Volunteers are rushing to hoist food and water up into trees in sweltering southern Mexico, but help came too late for the howler monkeys whose lifeless bodies lay still on the ground.
Issued on: 22/05/2024
A sick howler monkey recovers at a clinic in southern Mexico after being taken there by residents
Dozens of the primates are reported to have dropped dead from trees in recent weeks, alarming conservationists trying to keep the monkeys hydrated during a heat wave.
Victor Morato and his team at a veterinary hospital in the town of Comalcalco in Tabasco state have treated eight howler monkeys brought in by residents.
"When they arrived here in agony, they extended their hand to us as if to say 'help me'. I had a lump in my throat," he told AFP.
Several monkeys arrived at the clinic with body temperatures of around 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit), Morato said.
A DEAD howler monkey's body is seen covered in lime in southern Mexico
When they faint from the heat they sometimes fall 20 meters (65 feet), he added.
It is all the more worrying since the Mexican howler (Alouatta palliata mexicana) and the Yucatan black howler (Alouatta pigra) are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The mantled howler (Alouatta palliata), which also lives in southern Mexico as well as Central and South America, is classified as vulnerable on the Red List of Threatened Species.
Authorities investigate
Leonardo Sanchez was among those putting out water and fruit to help the animals on a cocoa plantation in the southern state of Tabasco.
Food and water are hoisted up into a tree by volunteers for howler monkeys in Mexico
The thermometer has reached almost 50 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent weeks, the 22-year-old biology student said.
"We've had a large number of deaths (of monkeys) due to the increased temperatures," he said.
Some volunteers carried lime to sprinkle on the bodies of dead primates.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who hails from Tabasco, said Monday the heat was the worst he had known.
"Since I've been visiting these states I've never felt it as much as I do now," he said at his regular news conference.
Mexico's environment ministry has said that it is investigating whether extreme heat was killing the monkeys, with studies under way to rule out a virus or disease.
A wild howler monkey is seen in a tree in Mexico's Tabasco State
It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees
A veterinarian feeds a young howler monkey rescued amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. Dozens of howler monkeys were found dead in the Gulf coast state while others were rescued by residents who rushed them to a local veterinarian. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)
BY MARK STEVENSON May 21, 2024
MEXICO CITY (AP) — It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees.
At least 138 of the midsize primates, who are known for their roaring vocal calls, were found dead in the Gulf Coast state of Tabasco since May 16, according to the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group. Others were rescued by residents, including five that were rushed to a local veterinarian who battled to save them.
“They arrived in critical condition, with dehydration and fever,” said Dr. Sergio Valenzuela. “They were as limp as rags. It was heatstroke.”
While Mexico’s brutal heat wave has been linked to the deaths of at least 26 people since March, veterinarians and rescuers say it has killed dozens and perhaps hundreds of howler monkeys. Around a third of the country saw highs of 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.
In the town of Tecolutilla, Tabasco, the dead monkeys started appearing Friday, when a local volunteer fire-and-rescue squad showed up with five of the creatures in the bed of a truck.
Howler monkeys sit in a cage at a veterinarian clinic after they were rescued amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)
Normally quite intimidating, howler monkeys are muscular and some can be as tall as 90 centimeters (3 feet), with tails just as long. Some males weigh more than 13.5 kilograms (30 pounds) and can live up to 20 years. They are equipped with big jaws and a fearsome set of teeth and fangs. But mostly they’re know for their lion-like roars, which bely their size.
“They (the volunteers) asked for help, they asked if I could examine some of the animals they had in their truck,” Valenzuela said Monday. “They said they didn’t have any money, and asked if I could do it for free.”
The veterinarian put ice on their limp little hands and feet, and hooked them up to IV drips with electrolytes.
So far, the monkeys appear to be on the mend. Once listless and easily handled, they are now in cages at Valenzuela’s office. “They’re recovering. They’re aggressive … they’re biting again,” he said, noting that’s a healthy sign for the usually furtive creatures.
Most aren’t so lucky. Wildlife biologist Gilberto Pozo counted about 138 of the animals dead or dying on the ground under trees. The die-off started around May 5 and hit its peak over the weekend.
“They were falling out of the trees like apples,” Pozo said. “They were in a state of severe dehydration, and they died within a matter of minutes.” Already weakened, Pozo says, the falls from dozens of yards (meters) up inflict additional damage that often finishes the monkeys off.
Pozo attributes the deaths to a “synergy” of factors, including high heat, drought, forest fires and logging that deprives the monkeys of water, shade and the fruit they eat, while noting that a pathogen, disease or other factor can’t yet be ruled out.
For people in the steamy, swampy, jungle-covered state of Tabasco, the howler monkey is a cherished, emblematic species; local people say the monkeys tell them the time of day by howling at dawn and dusk.
Pozo said the local people — who he knows through his work with the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group — have tried to help the monkeys they see around their farms. But he notes that could be a double-edged sword.
“They were falling out of the trees, and the people were moved, and they went to help the animals, they set out water and fruit for them,” Pozo said. “They want to care for them, mainly the baby monkeys, adopt them.”
“But no, the truth is that babies are very delicate, they can’t be in a house where there are dogs or cats, because they have pathogens that can potentially be fatal for howler monkeys,” he said, stressing they must be rehabilitated and released into the wild.
Pozo’s group has set up a special recovery stations for monkeys — it currently holds five monkeys, but birds and reptiles have also been affected — and is trying to organize a team of specialized veterinarians to give the primates the care they need.
Belatedly, the federal government acknowledged the problem Monday, with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador saying he had heard about it on social media. He congratulated Valenzuela on his efforts and said the government would seek to support the work.
A soldier removes the body of a howler monkey that died amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)
López Obrador acknowledged the heat problem — “I have never felt it as bad as this” — but he has a lot of human problems to deal with as well.
By May 9, at least nine cities in Mexico had set temperature records, with Ciudad Victoria in the border state of Tamaulipas clocking a broiling 47 C (117 F).
With below-average rainfall throughout almost all the country so far this year, lakes and dams are drying up, and water supplies are running out. Authorities have had to truck in water for everything from hospitals to fire-fighting teams. Low levels at hydroelectric dams have contributed to power blackouts in some parts of the country.
Consumers are feeling the heat as well. On Monday, the nationwide chain of OXXO convenience stores — the nation’s largest — said it was limiting purchases of ice to just two or three bags per customer in some places.
“In a period of high temperatures, OXXO is taking measures to ensure supplies of products for our customers,” parent company FEMSA said in a statement. “Limits on the sale of bagged ice seek to ensure that a larger number of customers can buy this product.”
But for the monkeys, it’s not a question of comfort, but of life or death.
“This is a sentinel species,” Pozo said, referring to the canary-in-a-coal-mine effect where one species can say a lot about an ecosystem. “It is telling us something about what is happening with climate change.”
A howler monkey sits inside a cage with others at a veterinarian clinic after they were rescued amid extremely high temperatures in Tecolutilla, Tabasco state, Mexico, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Luis Sanchez)
Why the bad rep? A spunky group of raptors deserves a public relations makeover
RAPTOR RESEARCH FOUNDATION
IMAGE:
AN ADULT RED-THROATED CARACARA (IBYCTER AMERICANUS) VOCALIZING AND PERCHING ON A BRANCH OF A TREE IN THE UPALA'S (ALAJUELA PROVINCE) RAIN FOREST OF COSTA RICA.
Caracaras are an inquisitive, gregarious, highly intelligent group of predatory birds in the falcon family, whose quirks go largely unnoticed by the public. Caracara researchers, however, say it’s time for that to change. In a caracara-focused issue of the Journal of Raptor Research, long-time caracara researcher Joan Morrison and co-author Miguel D. Saggese, from Western University of Health Sciences, present salient reasons for expanding research efforts on the nine species of living caracaras. In their paper “Assessing Knowledge of the Caracaras: Compiling Information, Identifying Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations for Future Research,” they present findings from a literature review that revealed alarmingly large knowledge gaps in the field of caracara research. Several species have hardly been studied at all. While caracaras are generally listed as species of Least Concern, this may be inaccurate given the lack of completed research on their population trends and basic life histories. Caracara researchers are calling all colleagues to rectify these gaps at a time when new technology is increasing research possibilities, and several caracara species are expanding their ranges into more urban centers.
Caracaras live exclusively in the Americas. Of the nine living species, only the Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) reaches the United States. The rest range throughout parts of Central and South America, where they fill the niche usually held by crows and ravens in North America. Caracaras are scrappy, plotting, and adaptable. They are scavengers, and therefore suffer from an arguably undeserved negative reputation, which results in human persecution and likely limits them from appearing in conservation discourse.
To establish an understanding of caracara research to date, Morrison and Saggese conducted a thorough literature review on all the research published on caracaras between 1900 and 2022. They categorized their findings by research topic and species, offering a revised picture of what we know (and don’t know), about these birds. The species most studied were those with broad ranges and significant overlap with humans, such as the Crested and Chimango (Milvago chimango) Caracaras. In fact, 82% of the sources identified focused on the Crested Caracara. The least studied species were the forest-dwelling Black Caracara (Daptrius ater) and Red-throated Caracara (Ibycter americanus). Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the U.S. have conducted most of the studies on caracaras thus far. Overall, foundational gaps still exist on basic life history information for many species, even though the tools exist to conduct such projects. It is the interest and funding that are lacking.
These findings are important because caracaras face a disproportionately high number of threats compared with other birds due to their life history, ecology, and reputation. Dangers include entanglement, poisoning, leg-hold traps, and unfortunately, direct human persecution. As top predators and scavengers, caracaras are agents of prey regulation and biomass removal, which are important ecosystem services. Recent population crashes of Old World vultures made it undeniably clear that without vultures, rotting flesh and disease remain on the landscape for longer periods of time, which impacts both human and ecosystem health. Little was known about vultures at the time of these crashes. Few were interested in them. Sound familiar?
The Old World vulture crashes demonstrate the importance of scavengers, and the unpredictable danger of knowledge gaps. Morrison and Saggese encourage collaboration between vulture and caracara biologists to bolster collective knowledge and prevent similar consequences from occurring in the Americas. Morrison says, “if we have a similar message, that these birds are interesting, we can work towards eliminating the persecution and negative reputation,” and she says now is the time for increased research efforts. “There are new advances in technology making research on rare and remote species more possible. There has simply not been enough attention given to this group and we argue there should be.”
Saggese points out that ignorance has already led to the disappearance of one caracara species, and as such, “we need to start looking at them as a group.” The Guadalupe Caracara (Caracara lutosa), endemic to Guadalupe Island, was intentionally eradicated by goat herders in the 1890s. Limited understanding and misperceptions often result in such undeserved hostility towards scavengers, something that more research can help prevent. Human-caracara conflicts (both real and perceived) are likely to increase given their expansion into areas inhabited by humans, so understanding the causal effects of these interactions is a timely priority.
Moving forward, Morrison and Saggese recommend additional research on basic natural history, foraging ecology, and evolutionary biology — specifically on the evolution of cognition in caracaras given their puzzle-solving abilities and use of play to investigate novel objects. Caracaras are ideal research subjects: brazen, social, easily intrigued, and big enough to fit with GPS transmitters. For up-and-coming conservation biologists, caracaras offer an untapped realm of research innovation, and an opportunity to aid in conserving a fascinating group of birds. As Saggese reminds us, “we cannot conserve what we don’t know.”
For more information on how to get involved with the Caracara Working Group, contact either author.
A juvenile Chimango Caracara (Milvago chimango) perching on a roof top in Mar del Plata city, Buenos Aires province, Argentina.
CREDIT
Franco Bogel
An adult Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) eating road kill (A European Hare hit by a car) along a highway near Calafate, Santa Cruz province, Argentina.
Nestling Crested Caracaras (Caracara plancus) in southern Patagonia, Santa Cruz province, Argentina. There this species nest in native shrubs, exotic trees and human-made structures.
CREDIT
Miguel D. Saggese
Paper
Joan L. Morrison and Miguel D. Saggese "Assessing Knowledge of the Caracaras: Compiling Information, Identifying Knowledge Gaps, and Recommendations for Future Research," Journal of Raptor Research 58(2), 141-152, (6 May 2024). https://doi.org/10.3356/JRR-23-39
Notes to Editor:
1. The Journal of Raptor Research (JRR) is an international scientific journal dedicated entirely
to the dissemination of information about birds of prey. Established in 1967, JRR has
published peer-reviewed research on raptor ecology, behavior, life history, conservation,
and techniques. JRR is available quarterly to members in electronic and paper format.
2. The Raptor Research Foundation (RRF) is the world’s largest professional society for raptor
researchers and conservationists. Founded in 1966 as a non-profit organization, our primary
goal is the accumulation and dissemination of scientific information about raptors. The
Foundation organizes annual scientific conferences and provides competitive grants & awards
for student researchers & conservationists. The Foundation also provides support &
networking opportunities for students & early career raptor researchers.
‘Our culture is dying’: vulture shortage threatens Zoroastrian burial rites
Inadvertent poisoning of scavengers across Indian subcontinent is forcing some communities to give up ancient custom
Sonia Gulzeb Sat 4 May 2024
THE GUARDIAN
Traditional Zoroastrian burial rites are becoming increasingly impossible to perform because of the precipitous decline of vultures in India, Iran and Pakistan.
For millennia, Parsi communities have traditionally disposed of their dead in structures called dakhma, or “towers of silence”. These circular, elevated edifices are designed to prevent the soil, and the sacred elements of earth, fire and water, from being contaminated by corpses.
Bodies are placed on top of the towers, where they decompose, while vultures and other scavengers eat the flesh on the bones. After being bleached by the sun and wind for up to a year, the bones are collected in an ossuary pit at the centre of the tower. Lime hastens their gradual disintegration, and the remaining material, along with rainwater runoff, filters through coal and sand before it is washed out to sea.
“We are no longer able to fulfil our traditions,” Hoshang Kapadia, a Karachi resident in his 80s, said. “We’ve lost a way of life, our culture.”
Kapadia explained that the purpose behind the Parsi burial customs was to “take less and give more” to the world. “The whole idea is not to pollute the earth,” he said
Vultures gather on a Parsi ‘tower of silence’, circa 1880. Offering one’s deceased body to the birds is regarded as the devout Zoroastrian’s ultimate act of charity.
Photograph: Sean Sexton/Getty Images
Karachi, which is built upon a river ecosystem on the western bank of the Indus River delta, is home to only 800 Parsis out of a population of 20 million people. The city has just two remaining towers of silence, both barely functional.
Another Karachi Parsi, Shirin, said: “The vulture’s mystical eye is believed to aid the soul’s cosmic transition, and offering one’s deceased body to the birds is regarded as the devout Zoroastrian’s ultimate act of charity.”
“The massive urbanisation and environmental changes in Karachi have led us to revisit our burial rites, as dakhmas were usually built on top of hills in locations distant from urban areas.
“Our tradition is dying. Our culture is dying in a time of increasing environmental change.”
Unlike many scavengers, vultures are classified as “obligate”. This means they do not opportunistically switch between predation and scavenging, as their mammalian counterparts do, but rely solely on locating and feeding on animal carcasses.
In recent decades, vultures have been dying in large numbers across the Indian subcontinent, primarily due to inadvertent poisoning with the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac, which is extensively administered to cattle in India and Pakistan.
When these cattle die, vultures feed on their carcasses and ingest the drug, which causes painful swelling, inflammation, and ultimately kidney failure and death in vultures. Research in 2007 estimated that about 97% of the three main vulture species in India and the surrounding region had disappeared.
Bombay, the Parsee Repository for their Dead, an illustration from 1722.
Photograph: CPA Media Pte Ltd/Alamy
The Parsi community in India is exploring captive vulture breeding and the use of “solar concentrators" to expedite the decomposition of bodies. As the solar concentrators only work in clear weather, some have been forced to opt for burial instead.
Kapadia said: “Parsis in Karachi [are forced to] opt for alternative methods of disposal, such as cremation or burial in designated Parsi cemeteries, as the two towers of silence in Karachi are barely functional”. He added that when vulture numbers declined at the towers of silence, some community members suggested creating a small captive group of vultures in an aviary to continue the traditional practice.
To prevent the extinction of vulture species, scientists have recommended banning the use of diclofenac in livestock, a move so far taken by India, Pakistan and Nepal. Captive-bred vultures have also been released into the wild in India in a bid to boost the threatened populations.
Monday, April 29, 2024
Can Responsible Journalism and Investor Capitalism Co-Exist?
Source: Medium Gannett Newspapers Severs Its Relationship With Associated Press To Please Its Shareholders
Credit: PeoplesWorld.org
Gannett Newspapers is the largest publisher of newspapers in the United States with millions of readers and subscribers in all parts of the country. It is also an investor-owned company that in recent years has prioritized profitability against the interests of its employees, readers and communities that they claim to serve.
In the most recent example of sacrificing quality journalism on the altar of maximizing profits, the Gannett Newspapers recently announced that they were severing their decades long relationship with the Associated Press, a not-for-profit news cooperative that has been serving news agencies in countries all over the world for nearly two centuries.
To compensate for the loss of comprehensive national and international news coverage, Gannett declared that it will “redeploy” assets in favor of its affiliated USA Today news network. Veteran reporters and analysts who write about issues affecting New Jersey’s news and information networks are skeptical that money saved by not using the AP will be used to further or enhance journalism.
Given Gannett’s poor track record in recent years of layoffs, firings and other cutbacks to services it is not likely that any savings will be used to continue providing the same level of coverage and information to Gannett readers. Whatever excess funds Gannett manages to accumulate by not using the AP will undoubtedly find its way into the dividends paid out to Gannett’s capitalist shareholders.
Even if Gannett was sincere about investing more capital in its own newsroom, the loss of news coverage from national and international sources of information provided by the AP would be devastating to those readers of Gannett newspapers who depend on articles published by AP members for accurate and relevant information about what is going on around the world.
In New Jersey alone Gannett owns nine newspapers with a combined circulation greater than that of all the other newspapers. Despite that, the company has spent little to replenish its already depleted staff who either retired or were laid off to maximize profitability. Given its poor track record of using profits to maintain and adequately compensate reporters and support staff, it is highly unlikely that Gannett will “redeploy” additional assets to provide adequate coverage of national and world events.
Over the years Gannett and other mass media for-profit corporations have been cutting staff including reporters, writers and editors in order to maximize profits and satisfy investor capitalists. It is a safe bet this trend will continue, and Gannett ending its relationship with AP will accelerate that trend.
As a not-for-profit news cooperative, the AP is free to use its journalistic resources to pursue stories of interest and relevance to readers all over the world, not just in the US. This means that the AP is dedicated to distributing information and analysis to its readers regardless of cost, instead of cutting costs to increase profits and put more money into the brokerage accounts of its capitalist shareholders.
With Gannett severing its relationship with the AP, this continues a trend at Gennett and other corporate news media to cut staff, reporters, editors and administrative support workers in favor of maximizing profitability. The result of fewer reporters means that there is significantly less coverage of news, especially at the local and community information outlets. What news there is to report focuses on those stories of most interest to readers and advertisers, especially readers who are wealthier and more likely to purchase advertiser goods and services.
Readers from disadvantaged backgrounds, low-income, racial and ethnic minorities, are less likely to be adequately served by corporate media giants like Gannett that are mostly interested in serving wealthier demographics. Readers buy advertising, and wealthier readers (predominantly white) buy lucrative advertising and more expensive (profitable) goods and services.
The result of class discrimination means that the needs of poor, disadvantaged and racial minorities are neglected in favor of addressing the desires of wealthier readers. This means that cutbacks and layoffs of reporters, editors and support staff are more likely to negatively impact minority reporters and support staff who regularly report on the needs of disadvantaged communities and people of color.
Reporters, writers and support staff at the largest corporate newspapers are not going away quietly without a fight. The last several years have seen a sudden increase in union organizing at the largest newspaper chains as journalists, to protect their jobs and professional integrity, are joining the News Guild unions to demand more effective collective bargaining opportunities, not only to protect their jobs but their professional integrity as well.
As the downsizing of corporate journalism continues to accelerate, journalists and related workers are exploring other options to pursue their profession without becoming answerable to investor capitalists and corporate executives.
In New Jersey Gannett Corporation has taken over most newspapers, closing some and cutting staff at others. The result was a serious decline in original news coverage, especially local and regional news as well as coverage of issues relevant to lower-income communities and disadvantaged minority groups.
With hundreds of reporters, writers, editors and support staff losing their jobs, combined with the need to maintain adequate coverage of relevant news to local communities, there is an opportunity to organize community resources and establish people-owned and people-managed news media.
One indicator of progress in providing news reporting and relevant information about local issues that is not controlled by big corporations is the recent acquisition by the newly formed, non-profit Corporation for New Jersey Local Media of 14 reputable weekly newspapers owned by the New Jersey Hills Media Group. With nearly 100,000 subscribers, they are the largest weekly newspaper group in New Jersey.
The plan of the Corporation for New Jersey Local Media is to transition their newspapers to non-profit status. When completed, the New Jersey Media Group will become the largest weekly newspaper group in the country owned and operated by a non-profit corporation.
In other parts of the US community and activist organizations are leading the fight against corporate journalism in favor of a new model for disseminating news especially relevant to local communities. The Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) has been a leader in supporting independent, nonprofit news organizations as an alternative to the abuses and exploitation of vulture capitalism in journalism.
The INN has been coordinating independent, nonprofit news organizations in every state with research and investment opportunities that focus on the most viable means of disseminating relevant news and information to local communities. Until recently independent media has been overly concerned with brand recognition and featured stories that emphasized political and economic consequences of corporate media.
A new approach would emphasize useful news that supports greater awareness among readers of community resources and information that has a direct impact on their daily activities and knowledge. This is especially important to marginalized communities and groups whose concerns have been neglected by corporate media.
Low-income and minority readers are especially vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation from investor capitalism. There just isn’t enough profitability and revenue to be derived from advertising and appealing to the needs of low-income minority groups as opposed to wealthier demographics.
According to recent research studies advocates and supporters of independent, nonprofit local news will gain more influence by focusing their attention on local and state governments for support as opposed to obtaining subsidies and other means from the federal government.
The recent decline in availability of objective local news coverage can be compensated for by working with local and state officials who are more receptive to local media coverage of their activities and policies. Local journalists also have to do a better job at working with disadvantaged communities and minority groups to assess what kind of news coverage is relevant to their daily needs and interests.
Providing important information to readers about economic affairs and political involvement as well as educational and vocational opportunities available to residents of marginalized communities is essential to establish credibility and support for independent journalism which is accountable to community members rather than investor shareholders.
New Jersey is among those states where independent journalists, many of them formerly employed by corporate media who lost their jobs for the sake of increasing profits for capitalist investors like Gannett Newspapers, have joined together to collaborate and cooperate with each other for establishing independent, community-oriented and not-for-profit news services.
Leading and coordinating the movement in New Jersey for independent journalism and local news reporting is the Center for Cooperative Media, a unit within the School of Communication and Media for Montclair State University. The Center was founded in 2012 in response to the downsizing of New Jersey news organizations and the changes in the ownership of regional public media. These shifts in the news and information landscape hurt the volume of local news available especially in poor, disadvantaged and minority communities.
The Center coordinates statewide and regional reporting, connecting smaller, local and independent news providers with each other through its sponsorship and funding of the New Jersey News Commons. The Commons helps partners to share content and encourages them to collaborate and support one another. The Center also conducts and publishes research on emerging ideas and best practices, focusing on local journalism and business models.
New Jersey and several other states as well as municipalities have already demonstrated that there are opportunities and support for local, independent journalism that puts the interests of people and communities ahead of increasing profits for corporate media giants like Gannett Newspapers which only serve to fatten the bank accounts of investor capitalists.
Ken Bank is a semi-retired business executive, part-time playwright, and freelance writer with masters degrees in business and history. He lives in New Jersey and is active in the local Democratic Party organization in support of progressive policies.
