We Can't Confront Climate Change While Lavishly Funding the Pentagon

Sunday, August 18, 2019 If you turn to Truthout for reliable reporting on the climate crisis, help support our coverage: Make a tax-deductible gift today. [Donate Now →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [We Can't Confront Climate Change While Lavishly Funding the Pentagon]( JP Sottile, Truthout Climate change is very much a by-product of the petroleum-based economy that has dominated the world since World War II, underwritten by the full faith and credit of the U.S. military. Any attempt to confront climate change must first begin with defunding the global protection racket run on behalf of oil companies by the Pentagon, which has itself become the world's largest consumer of oil and greenhouse gas producer. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [The Phrase "Go Back Where You Came From" Has a Long, Violent History]( Michael J. Viola, Truthout The huge influx of Filipino immigrants to the U.S. West Coast in the early part of the 20th century was the result of a labor shortage brought on by racial exclusion policies against other immigrant groups. Carlos Bulosan's re-released America Is in the Heart shows how Filipino migrants' labor and social movements helped transform their exploitation and racial oppression, and provides historical context to our current anti-migrant political climate. [Read the Review →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [We Could Eliminate Extreme Global Poverty If Multinationals Paid Their Taxes]( Alex Cobham, Truthout Global corporate tax avoidance costs us at least $500 billion a year in lost revenues with the poorest countries losing around $200 billion. Now those countries want the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to change international tax rules to force its member countries that have benefited the most from tax avoidance to pay their fair share toward ending extreme global poverty. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Sanders Unveils Plan to "Fundamentally Transform" Criminal Legal System]( Jake Johnson, Common Dreams Decrying America's status as the "world's leading jailer," Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday released a comprehensive plan to confront the crisis of mass incarceration, end the criminalization of poverty and dramatically overhaul the U.S. criminal legal system. "We have a criminal justice system that is racist and broken, and working together we're going to fundamentally transform it," said Sanders, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [How to Counter Trump's Disastrous Attack on Our Public Lands]( Randi Spivak, YES! Magazine Donald Trump's Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service have been quietly, systematically ceding control of America's public lands to fossil fuel, mining, timber and livestock interests since the day he took office. But there's good news: Current laws give Congress the power to end new onshore and offshore leasing, and courts have increasingly been demanding climate impacts from federal agencies. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Black Communities Are Already Living in a Tech Dystopia]( Janine Jackson, FAIR Ruha Benjamin, author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, says challenges to white supremacist institutional racism won't come from tech fixes, but through questioning and addressing the fundamental infrastructure of the society in which technology is being deployed. [Read the Interview and Listen to the Audio →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [The Christian Left, Appalled by Treatment of Migrants, Is Reviving in America]( Laura E. Alexander, The Conversation American Christianity is often associated with right-wing politics. To talk of an emerging "religious left" would be ahistoric, but Trump's hardline immigration policies seem to have spurred a broader population of Christians into action. Ever more they are visibly opposing President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and federal agencies' negligent, occasionally deadly treatment of immigrants. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Women in India Are Defending Democracy in Face of Rising Hindu Nationalism]( Yamuna Matheswaran, Waging Nonviolence With fascism on the rise, women in India are organizing trainings and numerous grassroots-level campaigns to foster communal harmony and safeguard constitutional rights. Their organizing is an attempt to counter the Hindutva ideology advocated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, its parent organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Sangh Parivar, which has infiltrated nearly all of the country's democratic institutions. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- In Case You Missed It --------------------------------------------------------------- [Trump's Immigration Crackdown Is Quietly Targeting Labor Protections]( Mike Ludwig, Truthout Undocumented immigrants are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, but the Trump administration has quietly eroded protections within a federal program for immigrants who come forward to report labor trafficking, sexual harassment and other forms of abuse. The administration is also attempting to crush a union representing immigration judges. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [States Sue Trump Administration for Going After Low-Income Green Card Holders]( Sasha Abramsky, Truthout New public charge rules proposed by the Trump administration will effectively close the U.S. off to low-income would-be-immigrants and exclude millions already in the country from public resources. In response, a tremendous legal battle as large as that surrounding the administration's efforts to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is now underway. [Read the Article →]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you're reading? Support Truthout's independent news and analysis by making an automatic monthly donation. 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