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Dispatches From the Culture Wars

White nash fash in Houston; World Social Forum in Montreal; Indian eco power in Cannon Ball; Armed sisters in Rojava; New debtors’ prison


White Lives Matter Group Protests Outside NAACP in Houston's Third Ward

By Jessica Hamilton and Darla Guillen
August 22, 2016
Houston Chronicle

The Confederate flag waved in front of the NAACP office Sunday. The red flag with its blue X holding white stars hung over the shoulder of a White Lives Matter member who was joined by others in his group in a protest against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
"We came out here to protest against the NAACP and their failure in speaking out against the atrocities that organizations like Black Lives Matter and other pro-black organizations have caused the attack and killing of white police officers, the burning down of cities and things of that nature," White Lives Matter member Ken Reed said. "If they're going to be a civil rights organization and defend their people, they also need to hold their people accountable."
 


The World Social Forum — a.k.a. the ‘Anti-Davos’ — Just Concluded. Here’s What Happened.

By Sarah S. Stroup and Jamie K. McCallumAugust 18, 2016
Washington Post

The World Social Forum (WSF), the “anti-Davos,” has met in places like Mumbai, Dakar and Tunis. The many participants are committed to the idea that “another world is possible,” although during the lifetime of the WSF that prospect has sometimes looked rather dim.
This year we were there at the forum meeting in Montreal, the first time the WSF has met in the global North. We surveyed more than 100 participants, joined thousands of people in the opening march, sat in on workshops, and interviewed attendees.

Native American Pipeline Protest Halts Construction in N. Dakota

By Phil McKenna
August 19, 2016
Inside Climate News

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A groundswell of Native American activists has temporarily shut down construction on a major new oil pipeline with an ongoing protest that has drawn around 1,200 people to Cannon Ball, N.D.
Protesters from dozens of tribes across the country are now camping in tents, tepees and mobile homes at the Sacred Stone Camp a mile and a half from the construction site.
 

When Women Fight ISIS

By Meredith Tax
August 18, 2016
New York Times

Two years ago this month, the Islamic State attacked the Yazidis, a Kurdish religious minority who live around Sinjar Mountain in Iraq.
It was Kurdish guerrillas from Syria and Turkey who eventually fought their way over the mountain through Islamic State territory, opening a corridor to bring Yazidi survivors to safety in the self-declared autonomous area of Syria called Rojava, the Kurdish word for west.
Many of these guerrillas were women, for a basic principle of the decades-long Kurdish liberation movement is that women cannot wait for others to defend them, but must themselves fight to be free. Indeed, some of these women say that they fight for other women, because they know what horrors await those captured by the Islamic State.

Paying for Punishment: The New Debtors’ Prison

By Donna Murch
August 1, 2016
Boston Review

America’s contemporary system of policing, courts, imprisonment, and parole doesn’t just absorb money. It also makes money through asset forfeiture, lucrative public contracts from private service providers, and by directly extracting revenue and unpaid labor from populations of color and the poor.
In states and municipalities throughout the country, the criminal justice system defrays costs by forcing prisoners and their families to pay for punishment. It also allows private service providers to charge outrageous fees for everyday needs such as telephone calls. As a result people facing even minor criminal charges can easily find themselves trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of debt, criminalization, and incarceration.