https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/deaths-first-and-second-world-wars/
World War II was the most destructive war in history. Estimates of those killed vary from 35 million to 60 million. The total for Europe alone was 15 million to 20 million—more than twice as many as in World War I. At least 6 million Jewish men, women, and children, and millions of others, died in Hitler’s extermination camps. Nor were the Germans themselves spared. By 1945, in a population of some 70 million, there were 7 million more German women than men.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/The-blast-of-World-War-II
“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.” John A. MacDonald. 1883
The TRC identified 3,200 deaths as part of its investigation. For one-third of these deaths, the government and schools didn’t record the student’s name. For one-quarter of these deaths, the government didn’t identify the student’s gender. And for around half, the cause of death wasn’t identified.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7911690/residential-schools-deaths-location/
Americans have been killing civilians since before there was a United States. At home and abroad, civilians — Pequots, African Americans, Cheyenne and Arapaho, Filipinos, Haitians, Japanese, Germans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, and Somalis, among others — have been shot, burned, and bombed to death. The slaughter at Sand Creek, the Bud Dajo massacre, the firebombing of Dresden, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the My Lai massacre — the United States has done what it can to sweep it all under the rug through denial, cover-ups, and the most effective means of all: forgetting.
https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/27/the-names-youll-never-know/
"The stunning victory won by grassroots activists in Germany this week — seizing 240,000 public housing apartments owned by corporate landlords in Berlin and putting them in the hands of renters themselves — has the potential to reverberate globally, inspiring ongoing and emerging struggles for more democratic and ecological approaches to housing."
https://truthout.org/articles/we-seized-240k-properties-from-corporate-landlords-through-grassroots-organizing/?
https://www.fredguerin.com/post/what-should-an-effective-climate-strike-look-like?
MacDonald's workers in Denmark get $22 an hour, have paid vacation and sick days.
The Council of Canadians posted this on their newsletter:
climate crisis does not exist in a vacuum. Other socio-economic crises such as racism, sexism, ableism, class inequality, and more amplify the climate crisis and vice versa. It is not just a single issue, our different struggles and liberations are connected and tied to each other. We are united in our fight for climate justice, but we must also acknowledge that we do not experience the same problems; nor do we experience them to the same extent.
MAPA (Most Affected Peoples and Areas) are experiencing the worst impacts of the climate crisis and are unable to adapt to it. This is because of the elite of the Global North who have caused the destruction of the lands of MAPA through colonialism, imperialism, systemic injustices, and their wanton greed which ultimately caused the warming of the planet. With both the COVID, climate, and every crisis in history, overexploited countries and marginalized sectors of society are systematically left behind to fend for themselves.
The time to join the masses and follow the lead of the environmental defenders and workers has been long overdue. Reparations to MAPA must be paid for the historic injustices of the richest elite, drastic emission cuts in the Global North, vaccine equity, cancellation of debt, and climate finance are only the beginning of these. Together we will fight for a just future where no one is left behind. The historical victories of collective action have proven the need for the youth to stand united with the multisectoral, intergenerational struggle for a better future for all; a future where people and planet are prioritized.
https://fridaysforfuture.org/september24/?
The benefits of the post-9/11 surge in Pentagon spending have been distributed in a highly concentrated fashion. More than one-third of all contracts now go to just five major weapons companies — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. Those five received more than $166 billion in such contracts in fiscal year 2020 alone. To put such a figure in perspective, the $75 billion in Pentagon contracts awarded to Lockheed Martin that year was significantly more than one and one-half times the entire 2020 budget for the State Department and the Agency for International Development, which together totaled $44 billion.
https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/21/how-corporations-won-the-war-on-terror/
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Similar to in the U.S., the anti-vaccine movement in Canada is driven by a multitude of factors, including distrust of the government and other institutions, animosity towards experts and authorities, cultural grievances, rejection of mainstream science, and the creeping influence of extremism in mainstream discourse on the right. Much of the anger and opposition to vaccination is propelled by misinformation and conspiracy theories alleging that vaccines are unsafe, harmful, or part of some sort of plot aimed at establishing a biometric surveillance system or other form of government control.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/09/19/analysis/shocking-anti-vaccine-protests-plagued-canadas-election-spawned-resurgent-far?
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The dilemma of our age is that those who have been trained never to cry, never to admit their vulnerability, will find an outlet somewhere. I can't predict where or how it comes out in the wash, but I am witnessing this rage today.
Protesters who are outraged that they are forced to be judged on their acceptance of vaccines have done some real harm to our democracy, and they may believe that forcing people to get vaccinated has done harm to those who believe they live in a democratic society.
It's a dilemma created that benefits only those with the power (money) to carry on getting richer at the expense of the rest of us.
Then there is rage that antivaxxers are bringing us closer to authoritarianism by targeting health workers and systems.
Regardless of what you believe is true or false, a division has been created and there are plenty of interests that benefit from division, rage, war and insecurity.
The quick way to break down democracy is inequality and fear. Talking to one another, trying to understand, creating opportunity takes a lot of effort while a portion of our world have been trained in ways not always clear, that reconciliation of humanity is naive.
If this was done through philosophy, respect and dignity, we could tackle the issue. But unfortunately we have been raised in a toxic colonial white supremacy that has, with its stories, policies and entertainment, promoted the idea that force and competition is the only thing that will protect us.
For centuries we have been trained to believe we are strong if we can force others to do what is best. From a virus to war to the rule of law ~ we are told we must take control. So we identify a "scapegoat" then kill them. And the strength of conscience, justice and civil society is broken, not for the greater good, but power-over, until the next crises arise out of our heavy handed habits.
Chris Hedges is a mature individual and an excellent writer. He reports the links to 9/11 to the treatment of nations by colonial nations. He makes a sound argument. Please take the time to read it here:
https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/10/hedges-the-evil-we-do-is-the-evil-we-get/
So I know in my own heart that this is not a protest against government regulations regarding vaccine passports forcing people to have vaccines even if those who participated thought it was.
I suspect there were hopes that this issue would divide people. Like racism, abortion bans, anti-semitism and homophobia, people are labelled, placed in an "identity group" then battered by populist arguments that claim to know and understand them. These groups encouraged to hate and express rage then hurl endless assaults on "manufactured" enemies.
I have watched and heard how unknown interests through corporate and social media have destroyed new movements that struggle to address injustice by presenting formed two dimensional personalities. Stereotypes of Africans, First Nations, Feminists, Peaceniks, Antivaxxers, Conspiracists, Socialists, Capitalists, Conservatives, and others.
Consequently people are diminished in their attempt to address the wrongs in their worlds as media offers them puppet reflections of themselves. Public 'intellectuals' are asked for their opinions on phenomena which are then reduced to easily identifiable types. Humanity becomes little more than battling idiots in this game.
Cui Bono? Not the people who struggle to do the best work they can in difficult situations. Not the parents who want to raise healthy happy children. Not the teachers who want to show us how to learn.
Not the people who want to protest government policies they feel are harmful. And not the people who believe the government is trying its best to help.
So using what limited power I have while maintaining integrity ~ I propose that a book of poems be published as a thank you to the Health care workers who have been abused during this pandemic.
Send your short poems thanking our health care workers, to janetvickers@gmail.com. I will select a few of the best and publish them for sale to raise money for PHC. The poems must accompany a written statement identifying you as the writer and that you give me permission to publish in a booklet. Poems previously published must include a full citation of where and when they were published.
https://rumble.media/episode209transcript/ Interview with Chris Hedges.
"Chris Hedges teaches us how we can see the decaying symptoms of empire in our own country with unemployment, opioid overdoses, mass shootings and the like. I wanted to have Chris on today to discuss Afghanistan, and empire, and the upcoming 9/11 anniversary. And we’ll get into that. But first, the awful news out of Texas here in the last 24 plus hours where the Trump-dominated Supreme Court in D.C., the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block Texas from banning abortion, effectively killing Roe v. Wade. They will hear an actual case in this next session where it is predicted that they will in some form, if not in all forms, overturn Roe v. Wade. This has happened, though, now effectively in Texas. Chris knows an awful lot about this subject. In 2008, he wrote a book called “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” It’s a scary book where he spends hundreds of hours interviewing Christian right-wingers, and being a Presbyterian minister himself and with his divinity degree from Harvard, they are fascinating conversations about Christianity…and then Christianity. He also attended, he writes in the American book, a lot of rallies by the Patriot pastors and other creationist in their seminars and all this. It’s really, it’s an amazing book. And I thought we will start off by talking about Texas and then get into the issues at hand here regarding the end of the war in Afghanistan. Chris Hedges, welcome to Rumble."
Dear Janet, Today, on International Migrants Day, the federal government released a statement claiming to “reaffirm our commitment to p...
