The Rag Blog | The Latest in News and Views from the Progressive Front

Harry Targ :
The Central American refugees are 21st century descendants of imperialism

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The popular narratives about the horrific migration ignore the history of U.S.-inspired violence in the region and the economic devastation caused by neoliberal economic policies.

TO GO WITH AFP STORY: MEXICO-MIGRATION -

A Guatemalan family crossing the border from Mexico. Photo by Omar Torres / AFP / Getty Images.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | July 20, 2014

A military coup in Honduras

On Sunday, June 28, 2009, the Honduran military carried out a coup, ousting duly elected President Manuel Zelaya from power. Almost immediately leaders of Western Hemisphere nations condemned the actions taken in Tegucigalpa, the capital city. For example, former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Lula) asserted that the days of military coups as a mechanism of the transfer of power were over in Latin America.

President Obama said on the following day that “it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections…. The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don’t want to go back to a dark past.”
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Border Crisis, Central America, Global South, Harry Targ, Honduras, Immigration Crisis, Manuel Zelaya, Neoliberal Economics, Rag Bloggers, Refugees, U.S. Imperialism, Western Hemisphere | 1 Comment

METRO | Melanie Scruggs : Charges of ‘environmental racism’ in Houston

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Houston’s Office of Sustainability is squirming over accusations raised by a recent article in ‘Grist’ and by local environmentalists.

Demonstrators from Zero Waste Houston at Houston City Hall.

By Melanie Scruggs | The Rag Blog | July 18, 2014

HOUSTON — Brentin Mock’s recent article for Grist covering the controversy around the City of Houston’s “One Bin for All” proposal, which calls for replacing curbside recycling with unproven and threatening waste technologies, has City officials squirming. The headline alone cuts straight to the core of the issue: “Houston’s one-bin-to-rule-them-all recycling plan smells a little like racism.”

I gave some background on the proposal in a Rag Blog Metro article and our coalition Zero Waste Houston has issued a report on it. On July 10, the City accepted five bids from companies that would receive tax incentives to build the new waste facility that environmentalists and environmental justice advocates say threaten the environment and people of color.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged City of Houston, Environmental Activists, Houston, Melanie Scruggs, Metro, One Bin for All, Rag Bloggers, Recycling, Waste Disposal, Zero Waste | Leave a comment

Thorne Dreyer :
PODCAST | Best-selling author Jeff Sharlet and his father, political scientist Robert Sharlet

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Jeff Sharlet, Molly Prize-winning journalist and author of ‘The Family,’ and scholar/author Bob Sharlet, join Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio.

Best-selling author and journalist Jeff Sharlet.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | July 17, 2014

Award-winning journalist Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, and his father, political scientist and author Robert Sharlet, are featured on our Rag Radio podcast (see player below). It’s the first time the two have been interviewed together.

Robert Sharlet and Jeff Sharlet are collaborating on a memoir of Robert’s late brother, also named Jeff Sharlet, a Vietnam veteran who was a leader of the GI resistance against the war. Sharlet died in 1969 of kidney cancer thought to have been caused by exposure to Agent Purple while he was in Vietnam.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Anti-War Vets, GI Resistance, Interview, Jeff Sharlet, Journalists, Podcast, Political Scientists, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, Robert Sharlet, Searching for Jeff, The Family, Thorne Dreyer, Vietnam GI, Vietnam War | Leave a comment

Jack A. Smith :
Israel bombs Gaza civilians. Again.

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

In 2008-2009, Israel virtually crushed the tiny territory and its 1.7 million inhabitants, killing 1,400 Palestinians, while losing only 10 Israeli soldiers.

Israeli border officer fires a tear-gas canister at Palestinians protesting an Israeli missile strike on Gaza in 2008. Photo by Muhammed Muheisen / AP.

By Jack A. Smith | The Rag Blog | July 16, 2014

Once again, Israel has found a pretext to viciously bomb Gaza. The UN wants the bombing to end, deploring that 80% of the 200 Palestinians who have been killed so far have been civilian women, children, and men.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who leads the right-wing settler government, claims Israel acted in “self-defense” after three Israeli young men were allegdedly murdered by Hamas, the elected government in Gaza. He then declared Hamas launched an unprovoked rocket barrage. Israel therefore had no choice.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Gaza, Israel-Gaza Conflict, Israeli Occupation, Jack A. Smith, Middle East, Palestine, Rag Bloggers | 3 Comments

Alice Embree :
VERSE | Beyond Borders

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Image from Jornada del Día Mundial del Agua 2010.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | July 15, 2014

On the edge of memory
The slogan echoes
“El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam”

U.S. weapons for
Right-wing death squads
Yield peasant massacres
And refugees

In recent memory
President Zelaya of Honduras
Kidnapped and removed from office
The State Department
Careful not to say “coup”
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Alice Embree, Central America, Detroit, Immigration Crisis, Poetry, Rag Bloggers, U.S. Foreign Policy, Verse, Water Privatization | 10 Comments

David Bacon :
How U.S. policies helped create the current immigration crisis

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Six reasons why U.S. trade and immigration policies — not ‘lax immigration enforcement’ — have caused migration from Central America.

Protest Against Detention and Deportation of Young Immigrants

Young people from immigrant youth groups protest outside the Oakland Federal Building against the detention and deportation of young migrants and families on the U.S. border, and especially against President Obama’s decision to increase border enforcement and deport them more quickly. Photos by David Bacon.

By David Bacon | The Rag Blog | July 14, 2014

David Bacon will be Thorne Dreyer‘s guest on Rag Radio Friday, July 18, 2-3 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live here. They will discuss the border immigration crisis and its causes, especially the role played by U.S. policies. For more about Rag Radio, including additional outlets and times, and links to earlier podcasts, go here.

The mass migration of children from Central America has been at the center of a political firestorm over the past few weeks. The mainstream media has run dozens of stories blaming families, especially mothers, for sending or bringing their children north from Central America.

The president himself lectured them, as though they were simply bad parents. “Do not send your children to the borders,” Obama said last week. “If they do make it, they’ll get sent back. More importantly, they may not make it.”
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Border Crisis, Border Security, CAFTA, Central America, David Bacon, Immigration, Mexican Border, NAFTA, Rag Bloggers, Trade Policies | 6 Comments

METRO | Beverly Baker Moore : Old and in the way in Austin

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

This article is a casual investigation of available cheap digs for seniors in Austin.

Lyons Gardens Senior Housing in Austin. Photos by Beverly Baker Moore / The Rag Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | July 13, 2014

AUSTIN — As the saying goes, getting old ain’t for sissies, especially in a delusion-ridden society that pretends aging doesn’t even happen. We all want to use our senior years for spending time with people we like and doing stuff we want, not worrying about how to pay for food and shelter. Unfortunately, political and economic realities force many of us into doing just that.

It is reported that the Austin area’s senior population (about 34,000 at present) is the third fastest growing one in the country. Austin is also reported to have the largest “pre-senior” population (55-64 years) in the country, so this so-called “silver tsunami” hasn’t crested.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Affordable Housing, Austin Community, Austin Growth, Beverly Baker Moore, Metro, Rag Bloggers, Senior Citizens, Senior Services | 3 Comments

James McEnteer :
The age of compromises and the compromises
of age

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Chastened by her exhausting persecution as First Lady, HRC apparently decided as a member of Congress to go along to get along.

Recent Yale law grad Hillary Clinton testifies in 1974 as a member of the impeachment inquiry staff during the Watergate Scandal.

By James McEnteer | The Rag Blog | July 10, 2014

Once upon a time, Hillary Rodham, the 1969 Wellesley valedictorian, studied the organizing tactics of Saul Alinsky and backed Eugene McCarthy’s presidential run. At commencement, she spoke of a conservative strain in New Left protests that harked back to old values and ideals, and she dared to challenge the United States senator who preceded her on the podium.

Were she still among us, that passionate young woman would surely oppose the nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) for the U.S. presidency.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged 2016 Elections, Electoral politics, Hillary Clinton, James McEnteer, Political Compromise, Pragmatism, Rag Bloggers | 4 Comments

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

METRO | Beverly Baker Moore with hints on finding affordable digs: ‘Old and in the way in Austin.’

Posted in RagBlurb | Leave a comment

Shepherd Bliss and Scott Hess :
Black oak down

Posted on July 9, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

I never imagined that I could outlive this hundreds-of-years-old grandfather oak. It felt like the loss of a family member from another generation.

Climbing the fallen oak at Kokopelli Farm is Lukas Hess. Click on image or go here to see more of Scott Hess’ Flickr set.

By Shepherd Bliss | Photos by Scott Hess | The Rag Blog |
July 10, 2014

A loud, crashing sound startles my young farmhand Emily Danler awake in the dark of the night. She camps out in order to start picking berries at sunup. My dog, inside, barks. After a physically demanding day farming, I sleep through it all.

Looking down the boysenberry field to the bottom of Kokopelli Farm the next morning, tears come to my eyes. The tall, old black oak had split right down the middle of its deep, wide trunk. I would never again see its crimson leaves announcing the beginning of Spring.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Mortality, Nature, Rag Bloggers, Scott Hess, Shepherd Bliss | 1 Comment

METRO EVENT | Alice Embree : Defending Palestinian rights

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Interfaith group protests Israel’s ongoing ‘reign of terror’ in the West Bank and Gaza and the murder of Palestinian civilians.

Image from Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | July 8, 2014

Event: Protest against Israeli Reign of Terror in Gaza
Place: Texas State Capitol
Address: 11th St. and Congress Ave.
When: Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Hours: 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

AUSTIN — The Austin Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights (ICPR) has called for a demonstration to demand an end to “Israel’s ongoing reign of terror in Gaza and the West Bank” and the murder of Palestinian civilians.

The demonstration, which will take place Wednesday, July 9, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m., is part of a worldwide protest marking the 10-year anniversary of the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s Separation Wall, located within the West Bank and in and around Jerusalem, violates international law.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Alice Embree, Metro, Palestinian Rights, Public Protest, Rag Bloggers | 2 Comments

Tom Hayden :
BOOKS | Counterinsurgency architect Kilcullen on the ‘coming age of the urban guerrilla’

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

David Kilcullen leaves Iraq and Afghanistan behind to concentrate on how to keep malignant masses of desperate people at bay in a coming urban apocalypse.

David Kilcullen writes of the “coming urban apocalypse.”

By Tom Hayden | The Rag Blog | July 8, 2014

[Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla by David Kilcullen (October 2013: Oxford University Press); Hardcover; 352 pp; $27.95.]

David Kilcullen is the brilliant but largely invisible architect of America’s failed counterinsurgency policies in Iraq. According to Bob Woodward, Kilcullen was the top counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus during the “surge” of targeted killings of Sunni insurgents, which was coupled with the U.S.-funded alliance with competing Sunni tribes known as “The Awakening,” in 2007-‘8.

The Pentagon declared the victory over those insurgents was based on a two-pronged approach of killing the “irreconcilables” while arming and funding the “reconcilables.” The terminology was Petraeus’ but the doctrine was Kilcullen’s.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Books, Counterinsurgency, David Kilcullen, Futurists, Iraq War, Long War, Mike Davis, Military History, Out of the Mountains, Rag Bloggers, The Phoenix Program, Tom Hayden, Urban Warfare | 6 Comments