Global
Like millions of you, I spent many hours in the past month watching the World Cup. As usual, I was pulling for Uruguay, a place I’ve never visited but have admired for being the first South American country to legalize same-sex marriage, marijuana, abortion, and to outlaw salt shakers from being placed on restaurant tables in their capital, Montevideo. (Salt kills more people than salmonella.)
Yes, it was humiliating for the U.S. to be eliminated by perhaps the most boring country on Earth, Belgium. If America has to lose, I want us to be ripped to shreds by Wales or Vietnam or Greenland.
But here’s the thing I couldn’t stop thinking about while I watched our team walk off that field in defeat.
Trumpman is innovatively if not logically tariffing wildfire smoke, while using his own smoke—also mirrors—to focus on migrants instead of his crypto billions and failed Qatar plane grift. Testosterone stocks are up, especially in ICE, where critics of masked marauder-murderers are advised to shut up about the constitution and other made up shit. Meanwhile, the agency in charge of charging federal contractors with violating employee rights is being shut down, on charges of not shutting up. We’re all learning: Rights are not for the Left.
Dr. Bob Fitrakis and Dan-o Dougan dream of being out at sea -- if they had a boat and could sail away.
Listen live at 11pm Fridays, July 24 and 31, and Mondays at 10am July 27 and August 3, streaming at wgrn.org or on the radio at 91.9FM
and
Mondays at 2pm streaming July 27 and August 3 at wcrsfm.org or on the radio at 92.7 or 98.3FM.
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC);
The President is continuing his illegal war on Iran despite Congress passing a War Powers Resolution ordering an end to it. Urge your Senators to demand a vote to block all funding for the war—and to oppose any defense bill that fails to prohibit it.
When Ethiopian American lawyer Melat Kiros could no longer bear to witness the suffering in Gaza, she published a message condemning what she viewed as the complicity of American law firms in suppressing pro-Palestinian voices and protests. The following day, her law firm gave her an ultimatum: delete the post or lose your job.
Melat did not have to think twice. The choice was clear
She refused to remain silent while children and women were being killed with American-made weapons and, in her view, at the hands of Israel, as much of the world watched without taking meaningful action.
Melat's response was simple:
"I will not delete the post."
The firm fired her.
Why Does Melat Kiros Support Palestine?
When people ask Melat, "Why do you support Palestine?" her answer is straightforward:
Two major stories regarding the United States and Israel in recent days represent profound watershed moments in the history of the relationship between both countries.
The first incident occurred on July 8 when US Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) and his delegation were detained by armed, illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
"These hoodlums come in with machine guns—an M4, an American-made machine gun—and they detain us," Khanna recounted in a stunning statement. "They block off the road. And then they call the IDF, and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans."
We open GREEP #274 with RAY MCCLENDON from Georgia who updates us on the state of the grassroots relational organizing.
In a year when control of the Congress is up for grabs, this could make the difference between democracy versus dictatorship, as we will see in the three months going forward
From Florida ALISON GREENE underscores the need to protect women’s right to vote in a campaign where their ballots could make all the difference.
Thus the subterfuge with requiring Voter ID is tied up with denying citizens their ID and manipulating the difference between married names and the ones on birth certificates
From MIKE HERSH we hear the need to force the media to cover the hijack of a vote count that could entrench a dictatorship where America still wants a democracy.
Knocking on the door with a friend or neighbor could save this election from being bought; higher turnout amongst low propensity voters may be the key to the human future.
GETTING TO HOMEBREW2
For our 2d GREEP hour the great TATANKA BRICCA recalls the great Homebrew meetings of the 1960s and ‘70s the gave birth to the personal computer.
A dozen nations of the world and two US states have officially entered Solartopia.
They all now generate more electricity with renewable sources than they consume.
Coming from Stanford University’s world-renowned engineering professor, Dr. Mark Jacobson, the numbers reflect a global transition away from fossil fuels and nuclear power, toward wind, water and solar (WWS) sources. They are increasingly backed by massive leaps in battery backup while prices drop—all amidst an epic shift from lithium to sodium batteries.
According to Jacobson, Laos (population: 7.87 million) now uses WWS in 257% of the electricity it consumes. It exports the rest. (See Linkedin Article)