Category Archives: HUMAN RIGHTS

Bernie Sanders: We Must Fight Like Hell Against Trump’s Authoritarianism

. HUMAN RIGHTS .

An article by Bernie Sanders in Common Dreams (reprinted  under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Make no mistakes about it, we are living in dangerous and unprecedented times as we combat Trump‘s oligarchy, authoritarianism, kleptocracy, and his horrific attacks against working families.


Demonstrators march through downtown protesting the agenda of the Trump Administration on September 30, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

We have more income and wealth inequality than we’ve ever had; we have more corporate control of the media than we’ve ever had; we have more billionaire money buying elections than we’ve ever had.

We have a major housing and educational crisis, people are going to the grocery store and can’t afford the food their families need, and we have a health care system that is completely broken.

Meanwhile, we have a president who is a pathological liar, who has little regard for the rule of law, who is suing media outlets that criticize him, threatening to jail his political opponents and talking about the military invading U.S. cities as practice.

History has always taught us that real change never takes place from the top on down. It always occurs from the bottom on up. It occurs when ordinary people get sick and tired of oppression and injustice—and fight back.

And on Tuesday night, as you know, the government shut down because—for the first time in modern history—Donald Trump and the Republican Party are approaching a budget conversation that requires 60 votes with a take it or leave it approach.

I will not take it.

I will not allow Donald Trump and the Republican Party to take away health care from 15 million people by making the largest cut to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in history.

I will not allow Donald Trump and the Republican Party to increase health insurance premiums by 75 percent, on average, for over 20 million Americans who get their health care through the Affordable Care Act.

I will not allow Donald Trump and the Republican Party to fund this by giving a $1 trillion tax break to people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and the other oligarchs in the top 1 percent.

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I will not allow Donald Trump and the Republican Party to undermine modern medicine and the health and well-being of our children by rejecting the scientific evidence regarding vaccines.

I will not allow Donald Trump and the Republican Party to allow this country to be moved toward authoritarianism by putting federal troops on city streets without a request from a governor or mayor.

I was asked ahead of the vote if I would just continue to vote NO over and over again until these issues are addressed, and you are damn right I will.

Donald Trump and my colleagues in the Republican Party may not stay up late at night worrying about people who can’t afford health care, the medicine they need to survive, groceries and an education for their children, but I do.

Republicans will not have my vote to fund the government unless they find a sense of morality and do the right thing on health care, income and wealth inequality, and stopping Donald Trump’s march toward authoritarianism.

I want the Republicans to go back to their districts and ask their constituents whether or not they believe it’s a good idea to take away health care from millions of Americans to give Bezos and Musk a tax break.

I suspect they will not like the answer they hear.

So no. Republicans will not have my vote to fund the government unless they find a sense of morality and do the right thing on health care, income and wealth inequality, and stopping Donald Trump’s march toward authoritarianism.

Until that happens it is important for all of us to stand up and make our voices heard.

Will it be easy? Of course not.

Is it possible? Only if everyone does their part.

Let me remind you, history has always taught us that real change never takes place from the top on down. It always occurs from the bottom on up. It occurs when ordinary people get sick and tired of oppression and injustice—and fight back. That is the history of the founding of our nation, the abolitionist movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement and more.

Sisters and brothers, we are living in dangerous times. Maybe more dangerous than any point in American history since the Civil War.

But this is a struggle that, for ourselves and future generations, we cannot lose.

Let us go forward together in solidarity

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DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

As Trump Escalates Attacks on Dissent, Oct. 18 ‘No Kings’ Protests Set to Be Even Bigger Than June

. HUMAN RIGHTS .

An article by Jessica Corbett from Common Dreams (reprinted  under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

As President Donald Trump and his allies continue to target immigrants, journalists, and anyone else critical of the increasingly authoritarian administration, organizers are gearing up  for another round of “No Kings” rallies across the United States, which they expect will draw even more demonstrators than a similar day of action  in June.


Protestors march during a “No Kings” demonstration on June 14, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jay L Clendenin/Getty Images)

“Sustained, broad-based, peaceful, pro-democracy grassroots movements win. Trump wanted a coronation on his birthday, and what he got instead was millions of people standing up to say NO KINGS,” Indivisible co-founder and co-executive director Ezra Levin said in a Tuesday statement. “No Kings Day on June 14 was an historic demonstration of people power, and it’s grown into a broad, diverse movement.”

“While Trump escalates his attack with occupations of American cities and secret police forces terrorizing American communities, normal everyday people across this country are showing up every single day with courage and defiance. On October 18, we’re going to show up in the largest peaceful protest in modern American history,” he added. “Millions will come together in more cities than ever to say collectively: No kings ever in America.”

Indivisible is planning next month’s peaceful protests alongside groups including the ACLU, American Federation of Teachers, Common Defense, 50501, Human Rights Campaign, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, National Nurses United, Public Citizen, Service Employees International Union, and United We Dream.

Organizers announced  the second Not Kings mobilization earlier this month. As a federal government shutdown loomed on Tuesday, they said that over 2,110 protests are now planned across all 50 states—more than those that drew over 5 million people to the streets in June.

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“We the People of the United States of America reject the Trump regime’s repeated assaults on our freedoms,” said 50501 national press coordinator Hunter Dunn. “This administration has invaded our cities, dismantled our social services, and tossed hard-working Americans into concentration camps. He has sacrificed our Constitution on the altar of fascism. On October 18th, the American people will gather together to practice two time-honored American traditions: nonviolent protest and anti-fascism.”

Trump has deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles, California, and Washington, DC, and this week is moving to do the same in Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois—where US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are already carrying out the deadly  “Operation Midway Blitz” as part of Trump’s national push for mass deportations. The administration is also specifically targeting pro-Palestinian foreign students, which a federal judge on Tuesday rebuked  with what one reporter called “the most scathing legal rebuke of the Trump era.”

Also on Tuesday, during an unusual gathering of US military leadership in Virginia, Trump declared that the country is “under invasion from within” and generals should use American cities as “training grounds,” while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged to overhaul the inspector general process: “No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking careers, no more walking on eggshells!”

Meanwhile, Jacob Thomas, a military veteran and communications director for Common Defense, said that “as veterans and patriots who swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and the freedoms that it enshrines, we are appalled at the lengths President Trump and his billionaire buddies have gone to to strip our neighbors and communities of the rights, dignity, and freedoms owed to everyone residing in this country.”

“We must all do our part to fight back against his authoritarianism and military occupation of cities,” he continued. “We cannot allow a wannabe dictator to destroy our democracy, gut veteran healthcare, keep people from accessing the ballot box, and tank our economy. We must all join together in solidarity to fight back and secure our freedoms. Two hundred and fifty years ago, Americans stood up to a tyrant king, generations later our great-grandparents defeated fascism abroad. Now it is up to us to defeat fascism at home.”

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DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

What would a general strike in the US actually look like?

. HUMAN RIGHTS .

An article by Jeremy Brecher from Waging Nonviolence

Something is in the air: A perception that American democracy and livable conditions for working people may only be saved by the kind of large-scale nonviolent direct action variously called “general strikes,” “political strikes,” or, as I will refer to all of them, “social strikes.”

Calls for mass disruptive action are coming from unlikely places, like Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU, an organization normally associated with legal action through the courts. When Romero was asked in a recent interview what would happen if the Trump administration systematically defied court orders, he replied, “Then we’ve got to take to the streets in a different way. We’ve got to shut down this country.”

Similarly senior Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern said, “We can’t just sit back and let our democracy just fall apart. What we need to think about are things like maybe a national strike across this country.”

Some in organized labor are also entering the fray. Sara Nelson, head of the Association of Flight Attendants, recently said that American workers — no matter what they do or what sector they are in — now have “very few options but to join together to organize for a general strike.” (She led the organizing for a national general strike that successfully deterred Trump’s attempt to shut down the government in his first term.)

Meanwhile, online, there are even more ad hoc efforts demonstrating the tactic’s appeal right now. For instance, more than 300,000 people have signed cards pledging to participate in a general strike.

Calling for general strikes is a staple of the radical toolkit. (I’ve made questionable efforts to call two or three myself over the past half-century.) But why has the idea of such mass actions suddenly appeared on the lips of such a wide range of people? There are three principal reasons:

1. The wide range of people being harmed by the MAGA juggernaut gives credibility to actions based on wide public participation.

2. The demolition of key institutions of democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law is threatening to leave few alternatives to popular uprising.

3. The fecklessness of the leadership of the Democratic Party, as sublimely illustrated by Sen. Chuck Schumer’s passage in March of the devastating MAGA budget, has led to despair about resistance within the institutions of government.

These inescapable realities are forcing people to think in unaccustomed ways.

I use the term “social strikes” to describe mass actions people take to exercise power by withdrawing cooperation from and disrupting the operation of society. The goal of a social strike is to affect not just the immediate employer, but a political regime or social structure. Such forms of mass direct action provide a possible alternative when institutional means of action prove ineffective. In all their varied forms they are based on Gandhi’s fundamental perception that “even the most powerful cannot rule without the cooperation of the ruled.”

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What are social strikes?

Social strike is a broad term that encompasses a wide range of activities that use the withdrawal of cooperation and mass disruption to affect governments and social structures. While the U.S. has a tradition of social and labor movements using mass action and local general strikes, it does not have a tradition of using people power for the defense of democracy. However, in other countries where democratic institutions have been so weakened or eliminated that they provide no alternative to tyranny, such methods have been used effectively.

Tyrannical regimes from Serbia to the Philippines to Brazil and many other places have been brought down by nonviolent revolts that made society ungovernable. More recent examples include the “popular impeachment” of the governor of Puerto Rico in 2019 after the leaking of scurrilous discussions in a chat group by top government leaders and the massive uprisings that removed the president of Korea as he instigated a coup last December. In March 2025 alone there were general strikes in Belgium, Argentina, Serbia and Korea — all directed against government austerity policies or, in the case of Korea, unconstitutional seizure of government power.

Various kinds of social strikes have occurred in U.S. history. The U.S. has seen at least half-a-dozen phases of intense class conflict like those Rosa Luxemburg called “periods of mass strike.” These often involved popular action that went far beyond, though usually included, the withdrawal of labor power that conventionally define a strike. Mass strikes have included general strikes, mass picketing, occupation of workplaces and government buildings, nonviolent direct action, shutdowns of commerce, blocking of traffic and other disruption of everyday activities. Mass strikes have often been met with severe repression and at times involved violent conflict with company guards, police, state militias and the U.S. Army.

The U.S. has also seen a handful of actions that fit the classical definition of a “general strike” as a coordinated work stoppage by trade unions in many different sectors.

The closest the U.S. has come to a national general strike was in 1886, when a strike for the eight-hour day became a general strike in Chicago and some other locations. Since then there have been a handful of general strikes in individual cities, for example the Seattle general strike in 1919 and the general strikes in Oakland and Stamford, Connecticut in 1946. They have all been sympathetic strikes to support particular groups of workers in struggles with their employers.

Such union-called general strikes, however, have been a rarity in U.S. labor history. American unions are bound by laws specifically designed to prevent them from taking part in strikes about issues outside their own workplace, such as sympathy strikes and political strikes. In most cases their contracts include “no-strike” language that bans them from striking during the contract. Unions that violate these prohibitions are subject to crushing fines and loss of bargaining rights. Their leaders can be — and have been — packed off to jail.

Historically, American unions have often opposed their members’ participation in strikes that union officials have not authorized because they wished to exercise a monopoly of authority over their members’ collective action. In labor movement jargon, such unauthorized actions were condemned as “dual unionism.” U.S. unions have often disciplined and sometimes supported the firing and blacklisting of workers who struck without official authorization. As a result, unions have often deterred their members from participating in mass strike actions even when the rank and file wanted to.

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DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

“Right to Dream” project by Myrian Castello, from Brazil

…. HUMAN RIGHTS ….

Post from email of Glêner Piantino on 25 September.
 
If it is the role of a city councilor to create municipal laws, what is the role of a co-councilor? According to co-councilor Myrian Castello – from the Coletiva Semear São Lourenço – PV, it is to go further and create something greater in the sense of a federal law. On September 24, the co-founder of the NGO Fábrica dos Sonhos had her constitutional amendment bill approved by the Special Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, in Brasília, DF.
 
Entitled “Right to Dream”, the project proposes to include this right as a constitutional amendment, grounded on the legal foundations of the articles of the Federal Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, all of which defend the right to full freedom of thought.

Widely accepted and approved in its legitimate proposal, the project argues for bringing the dream to the center of the legal, political, and social debate as a public policy, in the face of a context of social inequality, intolerance, discrimination, prejudice, and violations of human rights within the political and economic scenarios we live in.
 
More than an abstract concept, Myrian Castello’s initiative was thorough and incisive in justifying the right of underprivileged classes to achieve the dream of a better future, with new opportunities and real improvements in life.

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(Click here for the original Portuguese of this post.)

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In her speech, Myrian emphasized:
“Our project is a concrete proposal for social transformation. No one should take away from us the power to dream. We have presented an unprecedented bill to make the right to dream a fundamental human right in Brazil. Every human being,” she continued, “regardless of race, gender, age, or place, has the right to dream, imagine, and create realities based on ethics and love. When we defend the right to dream, we are defending what is most precious in human freedom: the possibility to imagine futures, to escape oppression, and to propose new ways of living,” she concluded.
 
Fábrica dos Sonhos is a Civil Society Organization (CSO), multidisciplinary, non-profit, and active in several social fronts. Its projects include education and citizenship, entrepreneurship and income generation, empowerment of youth and women, environment, sustainability, and community culture. Currently, the NGO carries out extensive activities in the municipality of São Lourenço, under the coordination of Alessandra Mattos Ferreira, the current executive secretary of the organization.
 
Myrian Castello is also a co-parliamentarian of the Coletiva Semear-PV candidacy of São Lourenço, represented by councilor Herbert Santo de Lima and also integrated by co-councilors Demian Mendes Lage and Theo Bajgielman Ayres.
 
“The project is the first known record in Minas Gerais — and the first in São Lourenço — of a proposal born within a local NGO being accepted by the Chamber of Deputies to proceed as a Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC).”
(Based on Art. 60 of the Federal Constitution and official records of the Chamber for SUG 3/2022 – Fábrica dos Sonhos.)
 #RightToDream #DreamsThatTransform #collectivetrajectory
 
Watch in full.
 
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HUMAN RIGHTS, Latin America

‘No Trump! No Troops!’ Thousands March in Chicago as President Threatens ‘War’

. HUMAN RIGHTS .

An article by Jon Queally from Common Dreams

Many thousands marched in solidarity through downtown Chicago over the weekend of September 6 to denounce the growing threat of President Donald Trump’s authoritarianism, with the Midwest’s largest city his latest target.

(Editor’s note: In more recent news, Trump was forced to back down from his threat to invade Chicago in the face of the united opposition in Chicago, including opposition by the mayor and by the governor of the State of Illinois.

Organized by the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, city residents demonstrated in droves on Saturday afternoon, walking down Michigan Avenue carrying signs that read: “National Guard Stay Out of Chicago!“; “ICE Out of Chicago!“; “No Trump! No Troops!“; “No Nazis – No Kings”; and “Rise Up! Fight Back!”

At a rally ahead of the march, Reverend Ciera Bates-Chamberlain of Live Free Illinois, a member of the coalition behind the march, denounced Trump’s threat to send a large-scale deportation force and National Guard troops to the city as well as the president’s wider far-right agenda.

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“Trump has spent billions on federal guards and the militarization of our community, pouring money into weapons and intimidation instead of investing in schools, hospitals, jobs, and housing,” Bates-Chamberlain said, according to Chicago’s Channel 5 news. “He has stripped us of vital resources meant to help us live, only to use them to try to break our spirits.”

Trump on Saturday threatened to show the people of Chicago “why it’s called the Department of War,” a reference to the recent rebranding of the Department of Defense. The president shared a meme from the Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now,” with himself superimposed on the war-hungry Lieutenant Colonel, and wrote: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.”

Even for Trump, known for his repulsive comments and increasingly autocratic behavior, the open threat to make war on a US city—despite later efforts to walk it back or efforts to gaslight people into thinking it didn’t mean what it clearly meant—was seen as a chilling escalation in rhetoric and intent.

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in response to the post. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

On Sunday, Trump’s so-called Border Czar Tom Homan appeared on television and said, “You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country” in the week ahead, threatening immigrant communities with the likelihood of raids and saying National Guard troop deployments to back up those operations are “always on the table.”

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HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

‘We Are All DC’: Tens of Thousands March to White House

. HUMAN RIGHTS .

An article from Common Dreams

The heart of Washington, D.C., pulsed with defiance on Saturday (September 6) as tens of thousands of demonstrators surged down 16th Street toward the White House. It was the city’s first major organized protest since President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency and unleashed federal troops onto its streets.

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Banners waved and voices rose in unison at the “We Are All D.C.” march, a massive show of resistance led by a coalition that included Free DC, defenders of local self-rule, Democracy Forward, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Their message was clear: the federal occupation of the capital must end.

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HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

Nearly 1,000 ‘Workers Over Billionaires’ Protests Planned Across US for Labor Day

. HUMAN RIGHTS .

An article by Stephen Prager from Common Dreams (reprinted according to Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Unions and progressive organizations are planning nearly 1,000 “Workers Over Billionaires” demonstrations across the United States this Labor Day to protest President Donald Trump’s assault on workers’ rights.


Thousands of labor union members and activists march in Philadelphia for May Day, on May 1, 2025. (Photo by the Philadelphia Democratic Socialists of America)

The day of national action has been organized by the May Day Strong coalition, which includes labor organizations like the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, and National Union of Healthcare Workers, as well as advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Fairness, Indivisible, Our Revolution, and Public Citizen.

“Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover,” the coalition says. “Billionaires are stealing from working families, destroying our democracy, and building private armies to attack our towns and cities.”

Since coming into office, the Trump administration has waged war on workers’ rights. Among many other actions, his administration has stripped over a million federal workers of their right to collectively bargain in what has been called the largest act of union busting in American history and dramatically cut their wages.

He has also weakened workplace safety enforcement, eliminated rules that protected workers against wage theft, and proposed eliminating the federal minimum wage for more than 3.7 million childcare and home workers.

Despite Trump’s efforts, Americans still believe in the power of collective action. According to a Gallup poll published Thursday, 68% of Americans say they approve of labor unions, the highest level of support since the mid-1960s.

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“Just like any bad boss, the way we stop the takeover is with collective action,” the coalition says on its website.

The May Day Strong coalition previously organized  hundreds of thousands of workers to take to the streets for International Workers Day, more commonly known as “May Day.” On Monday, rallies are once again expected  across all 50 states.

Four months later, their list of grievances has grown even longer, with Republicans having since passed a tax cut expected to facilitate perhaps the largest upward transfer of wealth in US history, featuring massive tax breaks for the wealthy paid for with historic cuts to the social safety net.

“There are nearly 1,000 billionaires in the country with a whopping $6 trillion, and that is still not enough for them,” said Saqib Bhattie, executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy, another group participating in the protests. “They are pushing elected officials to slash Medicaid, [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits, and special education funding for schools in order to fund their tax breaks. We need to claw back money from the billionaire. We need to push legislation to tax billionaires at the state and local levels. We need to organize to build the people power necessary to overcome their money.”

The group also plans to respond to Trump’s lawless attacks on immigrants and his militarized takeovers of American cities.

“This Labor Day,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, “we continue the fight for our democracy, the fight for the soul of our nation, the fight against the vindictive authoritarian moves Trump and the billionaire class aimed at stealing from working people and concentrating power.”

“This is about workers showing up and demanding what workers deserve all across the country,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “This Labor Day is really different, because it’s not just labor unions, as important as we may be to the workers we represent. It has to be all workers and all working families saying enough. Workers and working families deserve the bounty of the country.”

May Day Strong will host a national “mass call”  online on Saturday. The locations of the hundreds of protests on Monday can be found using the map on May Day Strong’s website.

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HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

United States: Hundreds of Organizations to Join Forces this Fall to Confront Trump & Billionaire Allies Nationwide, Marking Historic Collaboration of Movements

. HUMAN RIGHTS .

An article by 350.org from Common Dreams

In a historic collaboration of movements, climate justice activists, migrant rights defenders, and frontline communities are joining forces across the U.S. on September 20th to confront Trump and his billionaire allies as they accelerate climate chaos and fascism.

Under the banner “Make Billionaires Pay,” mass mobilizations nationwide will unite demands for climate action, migrant justice, gender and economic equality.

As Trump, other world leaders, and their billionaire allies gather for the UN General Assembly and New York Climate Week, a major march through New York City will demonstrate opposition to the tax cuts for the wealthy and Big Oil handouts that drive oppression and climate chaos.

Make Billionaires Pay is being convened by Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), Women’s March, Climate Defenders, and 350.org, with over 100 endorsing organizations. It is part of a global week of action for climate justice, called “Draw the Line” (convened by 350.org, Demand Climate Justice, Climate Action Network and War on Want).

Make Billionaires Pay will focus on three key demands:

1. Make Billionaires Pay: Tax extreme wealth, end fossil fuel subsidies, make big oil pay for the damages they’ve caused.

2. Reunite Families: Return abducted migrants, end collaboration with ICE, stop deportations.

3. Fund our People and Our Future: A just transition to 100% renewable energy, and justice for frontline communities.

Candice Fortin, U.S. Campaign Manager, 350.org, says: “This isn’t a new story—billionaires have always prioritized profit over people. This is a system working exactly as it was designed, but now without even the pretense of justice. As the U.S. braces for more extreme heat, wildfires, and hurricanes, the Trump administration has been systematically defunding our communities to give handouts to billionaires. They’re dismantling our democracy, attacking immigrants, and feeding the war profiteers. We are proud to be calling out this hypocrisy through Make Billionaires Pay and to be joining colleagues and communities mobilizing around the world to demand we Draw the Line for people and the planet.”

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Renata Pumarol with Climate Defenders, says: “Billionaires caused the climate chaos, spearheaded the rise of authoritarianism and they continue to profit from our suffering. But they forgot one thing: there are more of us than there are of them. On September 20th, we will send a strong message—it’s time for billionaires to pay.”

Kazi Fouzia, Organizing Director, DRUM-Desis Rising Up and Moving, says: “Our South Asian, Indo-Caribbean and many Global South peoples contribute the least to the root causes of the climate and migration crises. Yet we are targeted by these oppressive forces and policies. We risk everything to survive—we are forced to leave our homes, put our bodies in dangerous situations and end up working hard in new places far from our families. As displaced working class migrants, we are hit hard in the frontlines of our home countries and here in the US. Just last month, in my ancestral homeland in Bangladesh, more than 60,000 people have been affected by flooding and are without electricity or mobile phone coverage. By 2050, Bangladesh will lose one-third of our agricultural land because of rising sea levels caused by Big Oil.

Here in New York City, our streets and homes are flooded, too. Black, Brown, Indigenous and migrant people our life, labor and care are the backbone of this city but we are kidnapped, disappeared, terrorized and hunted down by ICE and the police. Who is responsible? Billionaires profit off climate chaos. Billionaires are destroying our planet. They are damaging our land, polluting our air and contaminating our water. Billionaires cause displacement and migration. They profit off detention centers, militarizing our communities and separating our families. They take over our governments and make us believe that we are each other’s enemies. But we are not. We are many and billionaires are few. We demand respect and dignity. We demand to be treated like human beings. We will fight alongside masses of people to shut down fascist billionaires.”

Tamika Middleton, Managing Director, Women’s March, says: “Women, migrants, queer and trans people, and communities of color have long been at the center of overlapping crises, from climate disaster to economic injustice to gender-based violence and forced displacement. These are not separate struggles; they stem from a global system designed by billionaires who exploit our struggles to maintain power. This mobilization isn’t just about climate — it’s about reclaiming our voices, our families, and our futures from those who seek to divide and dominate. When we unite across movements, we become an unstoppable force.”

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350 is building a future that’s just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We’re an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.

Contact:

Lindsay Meiman,Senior U.S. Communications Specialist,lindsay@350.org,us-comms@350.org,+1 347 460 9082,New York, USA

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HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

In Largest Israeli Protest to Date, 1 Million Israelis Demand Gaza Ceasefire to Free Hostages

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An article and video from Democracy Now (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License)

August 18: Massive protests have erupted in Israel, with about 500,000 people marching in Tel Aviv Sunday [August 17] to demand an end to the war in Gaza. Organizers say 1 million took part in demonstrations across the entire country. Most of the Israelis who were out on the streets “blame Netanyahu” for prioritizing his political survival over an end to the war, says Oren Ziv, reporter and photographer for +972 Magazine. Ziv notes that most Israelis are “not speaking directly on the suffering in Gaza, on the killings, on the children, on the starvation,” but instead focus on the survival of the hostages held in Gaza.


Frame from Democracy Now video

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to Israel, where over 500,000 people protested in Tel Aviv Sunday to demand an end to the war in Gaza and for the Israeli government to reach a deal to free the hostages in Gaza. Over a million people took part in protests across Israel as the families of Israeli hostages called for a nationwide day of stoppage. This is Lishay Miran-Lavi, the wife of Omri Miran, who’s being held in Gaza.

LISHAY MIRAN-LAVI: Last week, we decided to call to everyone in Israel, to all the citizens, to stop, take a day and stop all the country, in one saying: Please release the hostages, bring them home, and stop the war. We are really caring about our dears that’s over there. My Omri is over there 681 days. I miss him. Our daughters, Roni and Alma, really miss him, and I’m really, really scared and afraid about his life. I want him here, and I want all the hostages here.

AMY GOODMANAMY GOODMAN“Those who call to end the war delay the hostages’ release and guarantee that the horrors of October 7 will return,” unquote.

For more, we go to Oren Ziv, reporter and photographer for +972 Magazine and the independent Israeli news site Local Call.

Oren, welcome back to Democracy Now! You were covering the protests. Can you talk about the significance of the size of these protests, and what exactly the Israelis were calling for?

OREN ZIV: Thank you for having me.

I think it’s a really interesting moment, because over the past almost two years, we’ve seen big protests, but not huge like that. And we’ve seen also moments during the war with Iran, with Lebanon and other occasions that the numbers were really low. People — you know, Netanyahu is doing what he’s doing the best, and he’s dragging time and making people tired. And this is also true to the Israeli public, that went in tens of thousands in the last year and a half or two years. But yesterday, a big and a significant number of people went out.

And it’s even more important with the incitement we’ve seen from Netanyahu and other ministers that were even more harsh than Netanyahu, saying that protesters are helping Hamas, making the price of a deal higher, and so on. So, in the fact of in the end of this day — during the day, there were hundreds, if not thousands, small vigil, direct action roadblocks. The country was shut down, basically, traffic-wise. And in the evening, we saw one of the biggest vigils and demonstration we’ve seen in recent years, of almost half a million people in the streets in Tel Aviv. And this is, first and for all, a message from the Israeli public, and what the polls show, that the vast majority of the Israeli public is willing to end the war in order to release the hostages.

Now, it’s important to say that this is from an internal Israeli perspective. It’s not like the protests we see abroad. These are people who are calling to return the hostages in any price. And after two years, many of them, many in the Israeli public, blame Netanyahu. He’s trying to blame Hamas. But many of the people, or the most of the people who went out yesterday to the streets, are blaming Netanyahu for not doing a deal, to survive politically. This is a very common statement you hear from everyone on the streets. And they’re calling to end the war. They’ve seen in the last two years that only political agreements and ceasefire agreements bring back hostages alive. We’ve seen over 40 hostages that died in captivity, either from the army’s attack or from reaction of Hamas when they were trying to — when the army was coming nearby. And people had enough.

In the same time, it’s important to say that the vast majority of the protesters yesterday, although the fact they called to end the war, they’re not speaking directly on the suffering in Gaza, on the killings, on the children, on the starvation. You can hear it here and there. You can hear it from smaller groups that have been protesting from the beginning of the war against the genocide and the ongoing ethnic cleansing. But it’s not on the stages. It’s not the main message yet.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get your response to how Israelis have responded to Israel’s Channel 12 airing those leaked recordings of Israel’s former military intelligence chief saying 50 Palestinians must die for every victim of October 7th, saying tens of thousands of Palestinians must die. In the recording, Aharon Haliva is heard saying, quote, “It does not matter now if they are children.” He said, quote, “They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price.” Oren Ziv?

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Question related to this article:

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

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OREN ZIV: So, to be honest, the vast majority of the discussion inside Israel was regarding the fact that this person, that many Israelis see as the responsible for the catastrophe of October 7th, for the failure of the Israel intelligence to finding out that this will happen, so people thought this kind of leaked recordings — some people say that he might have leaked it out — are kind of serving him, to clean him and to blame the problem is the general system. So, in Israel, the vast majority of discussion was about that. Was it really leaked? Is it serving him? Why? You know, many people, hostages — family members of hostages are saying he should be trialed and sit in prison.

But this segment didn’t catch a lot of attention in Israel, because, unfortunately, this is very common. It’s something we heard from day one from politicians, from army people, in the public, in the — in right-wing demos, we hear it. We hear it everywhere. So, unfortunately, this didn’t cause a lot of noise in Israel.
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But definitely, it shows you that such a high commander saying these things openly, you know, without being ashamed and without getting any attention in Israel, show you that this decision of revenge, of genocidal war, was done from day one. And Israel, also to cover the failure of October 7, decided to go to a revenge, a horrific war, as we’re seeing now. And you can see that this decision is not just by soldiers on the ground or right-wing or extreme so-called settlers. This is all across the army, from the high-ranked commanders and the politicians to the simple soldiers. And now when we see the horrific reality in Gaza after almost two years, we can understand this was planned. The army felt they have to revenge to cover up the failure of October 7.

AMY GOODMAN: I also wanted to ask you about the Israelis who are refusing to enlist in the Israeli military. You just posted a short video of 19-year-old Yona Roseman, who was sentenced to 30 days in military prison.

YONA ROSEMAN: Today, I’m going to show up at a draft office and declare that I refuse to serve in an army that’s committing genocide. And for that, I will probably be sent to military jail.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Yona Roseman. How common is this, the refuseniks?

OREN ZIV: So, it’s not very common, especially in mandatory service. Eighteen-year-old students, high school students are all the system, all their life — all the education system is pushing them to go to the army. That’s the norm. In order to be like Yona and other brave young Israelis, you have to go against the stream and to educate yourself and to go to demonstration and meet people and not watch the Israeli mainstream media, who doesn’t show you what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank. And so, it’s not very common.

But we’ve seen some increase in the number. Already from the beginning of the war, more than 12 announced, ones who went public, a youth who refused. And they pay a price. It’s not only 30 days in prison. They have to go again and again to prison a few times. But among reservists, we’ve seen — reservists, we’ve seen a growing movement of people refusing, because of what’s been happening in Gaza, also calling to release the hostages. And we’ve seen hundreds of people refuse. With some of them, the army chooses not to deal with prison, but to release them quietly.

Specifically about Yona and her group from Mesarvot — “refusing” in Hebrew — they are showing — they want to show that not everybody in Israel, that there is a small group who resists the genocide and the horrific things the army does. And as she told us, that’s her duty. That’s the only thing you can do when you see what the army is doing. She told me in the interview before she went to prison that she decided even before October 7 and before the war in Gaza to refuse, but after the genocide started, it was much easier for her to take this decision. And we hear it from other refuseniks, as well.

And, you know, it’s very hard. When she appears on social media, on national media, they get a lot of incitement, hatred, inside the prison and also when they go out. Last month, they burned some of the enlistment orders in the streets in Tel Aviv. And to do something like that in the general atmosphere in Israel, that is very hostile to this action, is very, very brave.

AMY GOODMAN: I finally wanted to ask you, as you cover protests, yes, the protests this weekend of a million Israelis, but also about the protest outside the hotel where GHF staff were staying in Tel Aviv. That’s the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, this shadowy U.S.-backed Israeli company that is supposedly providing food aid, but when people come, they are often shot dead as they try to seek food, children and adults alike. What about that protest?

OREN ZIV: So last week, a group of activists, radical left-wing activists, located where the so-called GHF staff, including CEO and other senior members, are staying in Tel Aviv, because, you know, they work in Gaza in coordination with the Israeli army and other companies, but they’re staying in a very fancy hotel in the shore of Tel Aviv. And they wanted to come there to send a clear message that this is not accepted, that they’re not welcome here, and to stop this lie that is called the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. So, they came there, around 50 protesters, to surprise. The police was not aware of it. They arrived there to the entrance of the hotel, we know from people inside. They heard them inside the hotel. And they were protesting there for about an hour. The police was trying to push them away.

Some tourists and people who passed by tried to confront them. And this happens, by the way, in every demo like this, against the genocide, against the starvation, in Tel Aviv and other cities, that are often attacked by the Israeli public. The Israeli mainstream media doesn’t show the images or the voices from Gaza like you do and many other media outlets. So, when the Israeli public is met on the streets with people who are trying just to show the facts, to shed light on what’s happening on the other side of the fence, people are many times surprised or even angry and try to attack the protesters. And they are telling me this is only one of first actions they will do against the GHF operation here in the region.

AMY GOODMAN: Oren Ziv, we want to thank you for being with us, reporter and photographer for +972 Magazine and the independent Israeli news site Local Call.
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HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast

United States: Indivisible, the team that organized the No Kings demonstrations

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

Text from an article by Brad Reed from Common Dreams

Progressive advocacy organization Indivisible is launching  an ambitious new campaign aimed at training more than one million organizers to oppose the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration.


Indivisible’s national team offers strategic leadership, movement coordination, and support to Indivisible activists, and also directly lobbies congress, builds partnerships, runs media campaigns, and develops advocacy strategies.

Over the next several weeks, Indivisible will be hosting online organizing sessions as part of its One Million Rising initiative, which it describes as “a national effort to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing and campaign design.”

Indivisible this year has already organized high-profile nationwide protests this year including the “Hands Off” and “No Kings” events that were attended by millions of Americans. However, it says that its aim with One Million Rising is to go beyond big one-day mobilizations to create more sustained local campaigns throughout the United States that would fight the Trump agenda on a daily basis.

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Questions related to this article:

Is there a renewed movement of solidarity by the new generation?

The struggle for human rights, is it gathering force in the USA?

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In its message promoting the event, Indivisible emphasizes that “it’ll take all of us” to mobilize against the Trump administration and added that this effort “is how we build people power that can’t be ignored.”

Indivisible held its first One Million Rising session last Wednesday and a recording of the session is available to watch on YouTube. The next session will be held on Wednesday, July 30 and will focus on “how you can lead a discussion with others and get them on board with taking action in your community” and will also help attendees organize their first “community resistance gathering” in the span of two weeks or less.

The third and final session, scheduled for Wednesday, August 13, will have attendees “onboarded to basic campaign design” where they will “learn how to implement it locally as well as get plugged into our next national campaign work.”

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, recently told publication Axios that Indivisible’s new campaign shows that it’s entering a second stage in its approach to organizing.

“That outrage is still there, but now it’s going to be funneled and channeled into strategies and tactics on how we actually make change in the government,” she explained. “As more and more protests happen, local, state, and federal elected officials will feel uncomfortable maintaining the stance they have.”

(Editor’s note: Click here to see Indivisible’s support for local election candidates.)

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HUMAN RIGHTS, North America