Global

Racism goes beyond the use of certain words or the discriminatory practices of everyday life. It is also about political perceptions, intellectual depictions, and collective relationships. 

 Consider the way that Africa is currently portrayed in the news. 

 From a political viewpoint, Africa is seen as a totality, and not in a positive way, as in a united Africa. 

 For example, mainstream Western media coverage of the US-Africa Summit, held in Washington last December, presented all of Africa as poor and desperate. The continent, one can glean from headlines, was also willing to pawn its political position in the Russia-NATO conflict, in exchange for money and food. 

 "Biden tells African leaders US is 'all in' on the continent," an Associated Press headline announced on December 15. 

 The phrase 'all in' - a lingo used in Poker when someone is willing to risk it all - was cited many times in the US and Western media. 

Backstage at Carnegie Hall during the mid-1980s I found myself standing next to a tall, older gentleman. Looking up, I gasped, realizing I was in the presence of arguably the world’s greatest living playwright. I blurted out: “God bless you, Mr. Miller!”

Arthur Miller, author of the immortal masterpiece Death of a Salesman, is high up on my list of must-see bards. Whenever I get word that one of his plays is being mounted on L.A.’s boards, for me “It’s Miller time!” and I make a beeline to that stage to bask in the brilliance of his Arthurian dramatics and wordplay. (See: https://hollywoodprogressive.com/stage/all-my-sons; https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/broken-glass-what-it-means-to-be-a-jew-in-america/.) And so it was with the Ruskin Group Theatre’s stellar, gut-punching production of A View from the Bridge (which I’d never had the opportunity to see before on stage or screen) way down yonder at Santa Monica – and I wasn’t disappointed. 

It is feasible for China to continue playing an important role in mediating Middle
East conflicts. In fact, it already has. In the case of the Israeli occupation of Palestine,
however, mediation is hardly the issue.
 
Even before Beijing successfully managed to achieve reconciliation between Saudi
Arabia and Iran last April, Chinese diplomacy has shown exceptional maturity.
 
For many years, China has been perceived to be an outsider to global affairs,
supposedly contending itself to economic expansion or to regional economic
integration.
 
Former US President Donald Trump forced, or rather, accelerated China’s global
outreach when, in 2018, he launched an unprecedented trade war on the powerful
Asian country.
 
Trump’s plan backfired. Not only did Washington fail to dissuade Beijing from
bowing to American diktats, it also inspired what became known as China’s wolf
diplomacy – a self-assertive Chinese approach to foreign policy.
 
From an American - or Western - viewpoint, the new tactic was perceived to be
hostile and aggressive.
 

The horrifying disaster in Maui is Mother Nature’s way of telling us that with global boiling, there are no more safe places.

JOHN & MARGO STEINER say where to send our ALOHA IN ACTION support for those in this stricken paradise.

TATANKA BRICCA, MYLA RESON, DOROTHY REIK, JEFFREY BARKDULL and JUSTIN LEBLANC give us their mahalo in a time of tragedy.

@15:40 RACHEL COYLE then reveals the inside story of the HUGE people’s victory over Ohio’s fascist Issue One, meant to erase the public right to democratically amend the Buckeye constitution with a simple majority….enshrined in Ohio law since 1912.

@44:45 WENDI LEDERMAN describes Florida’s strongman/torturer Ron DeSantis’s purges of duly elected public officials, making Florida the place where democracy and freedom go to die.

The great eco-activist RUSSELL GREENE invites us to his September 17 mega-march in New York aiming to end fossil/nuke climate destruction.

PETER FIEKOWSKY explains his mega-engineering approach to decarbonizing the atmosphere.