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America’s Broken Democracy

Jeffrey Sachs Project Syndicate
Behind the formal structures of a once-functioning democracy is a political system run by corporate interests with the cynical aims of cutting taxes on the rich, selling weapons, and polluting with impunity. In Trump, they have found a shameless frontman.

Bucking Trump, These Cities, States and Companies Commit to Paris Accord

Hiroko Tabuchi and Henry Fountain The New York Times
Cities and states can reduce emissions in many ways, including negotiating contracts with local utilities to supply greater amounts of renewable energy, building rapid transit programs and other infrastructure projects like improved wastewater treatment.

Wonder Woman

Dana Stevens Slate
This delicately powerful superhero movie made me finally see the importance of female representation.

Waiting for the End

Peter Neil Carroll Jewish Currents
Fifty-some years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, we are still waiting for the end--not necessary of the world, but the US embargo. Poet Peter Neil Carroll recalls an October day when Paul Simon, relatively unknown, sang for a class of nervous students at Queens College and how a young Cuban today looks back at that moment.

A Not So Distant Mirror: Jack London's Political Writings

Howard Tharsing The Threepenny Review
Returning to two of socialist Jack London's classics, The Iron Heel and The People of the Abyss--both available free at Project Gutenberg--the reviewer finds stark similarities between the deprivation of the early 20th century and the modern world of neoliberal capitalism, with its gig economy and the emergence of a precariat, valorizing London's injunction that class supremacy can rest only on class degradation.

We Won't Always Have Paris - Withdrawing is a Crime Against Humanity

Edward Hunt Foreign Policy in Focus
The Trump administration today pulled out of the Paris agreement on climate change. That pits the U.S. against the world and the scientific consensus on global warming. Trump's comments on climate change during his meeting with European leaders prompted German leader Angela Merkel to conclude that Europe must increasingly go it alone. The Obama administration could have done more, while the Trump administration couldn't have done less. (John Feffer, FPIF)

Reflections on the Victorious Hunger Strike - In first statement since end of hunger strike, Marwan Barghouti celebrates ‘the victory of the strike of freedom and dignity’

Marwan Barghouti; Allison Deger Mondoweiss
Barghouti’s statement, posted to social media around noon EST in Arabic. The letter lauds gains from the strike, including increased family visits, more clothing, special unnamed services for female and child prisoners, expedited transfers and, most importantly, the establishment of a collective bargaining committee where Israeli prison authorities will 'dialogue with the prisoners’ representatives in the forthcoming few days to discuss all issues without exception.'*

Israeli Police Broke My Arm, But They Can’t Stop Me From Resisting — Or Speaking Out

Sarah Brammer-Shlay; and Ethan Buckner; Natasha Roth Jewish Daily Forward
What I’m experiencing in this moment is a small example of how the occupation is used to take away agency from the Palestinian people on a daily basis. Each and every day, Palestinians are subjected to arbitrary checkpoints which delay their travel, restricted water which strips them of basic dignity, home demolitions which tear families apart, and constant surveillance that has seeped into every aspect of Palestinian society. I am broken but not finished.

Is the OAS Playing a Constructive Role on Venezuela? What Should It Be Doing Differently? - Dialogue

D. Smilde; M. TinkerSalas; J. McCoy; M. Weisbrot; S. Ellner Venezuela Dialogue
The OAS has no positive role to play in resolving the political crisis in Venezuela, any more than would Senator Marco Rubio or other Florida politicians who seek regime change there. It should be clear that the organization is currently an instrument of those who simply want to use the current crisis to topple the Venezuelan government. People who want to avoid escalating violence or civil war in Venezuela should not pretend otherwise. Differing responses.