Incoming Feed Items

Like the rest of the world, I became a Chappell Roan fan this summer. And while, in the six months since my first COVID infection, I’d learned the hard way that I could no longer use the little off brand stairmaster in my apartment, I’d begun to enjoy my gentle evening walks in the neighborhood with Chappell as May passed, and June.

I’d wait until 8 pm or 9, because in DC this late in the climate crisis it won’t drop below 90 much earlier than that. I’d coat myself in high-percentage DEET bug spray, the greasy, deep-woods stuff, none of that all-natural nonsense that well-meaning moms use to protect their kids and the local wildlife (including the mosquitoes).

And then I’d take a walk, a simple thing that had become a not-so-simple thing.

A walk feels less simple when you haven’t been able to walk much at all since November. When for months, walking triggered shortness of breath that lasted days and left you tearfully asking Reddit when it would end (answer: never and soon and wait and see). When for months after the shortness of breath months, exercise triggered migraines that lasted days, weeks, that ended in the emergency room, that ended in IVs full of steroids, that left me feeling drained and defeated and dull.

A kind doctor joked to me, “I want to open a Long COVID clinic- I’d get rich!” At least he believes in Long COVID, I thought to myself, and readjusted my mask. The IV fluids made me feel cold and strange. He brought me a blanket. I felt alone.

On June 27, Joe Biden’s gave the debate performance that launched a thousand think pieces.

Biden sounded confused, his responses were garbled, meandering; frankly, he exhibited signs of significant cognitive decline since we’d last seen him on the debate stage in 2020. Everyone from the Democratic-Party-fanboy-hosts of Pod Save America to the Democratic-Party-monster-fundraiser George Clooney were publicly calling on Biden to step down.

But on July 5, 81-year-old Joe Biden was as firm as ever in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, insisting he had no plans to withdraw from the race. He stated:

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

“You can't just sit there and build drones and not talk about who it's serving and who does it help,” says Richard Solomon, PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and member of the Coalition for Palestine at MIT. On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Solomon and fellow MIT PhD student Prahlad Iyengar detail their battle against the historic institution’s active participation in the genocide in Gaza. Their story exemplifies the repression students face across the country who dare question how their work and labor are used to advance the illegal and morally reprehensible goals of the Israeli military.

There’s a certain triumphalism on the Right regarding the declining fortunes of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in American institutions and corporations. Companies which have recently rolled back their DEI programs include heavy weights such as Walmart, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar, and Lowe’s. “DEI Is Dying,” read one New York Post op-ed in May of last year. The editors of National Review crowed in May 2024: “DEI on the Run.” Yet as someone who recently completed my employer’s web-based DEI training, it’s going to require a much more concerted effort by businesses and government to excise this cancer from American public life.

The DEI training I took wasn’t mandatory, though it was encouraged by senior leadership, and H.R. told the workforce that its completion would be looked upon positively for promotion purposes.

As I speculated, I got through the approximately 11 hours of video content while still doing my actual job. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of my colleagues thought DEI so important that it demanded their undivided attention.

Introduction

Webinar by the Democracy Resource Hub on insights, strategies & lessons learned from managing movements during a post-election period.

About the Webinar

In times of political transition and uncertainty, movements for democracy and social justice face critical challenges in sustaining momentum and adapting to new realities. This webinar, held on December 3rd, 2024 and hosted by The Horizons Project. This event was part of the Intermestic Learning Exchange Series hosted on the Democracy Resource Hub. (About Us)

The fight for freedom or democracy or equality or justice is not an event. It’s a process… And you are part of a process. You are part of a journey. – Evan Mawarire

The global panel of speakers included: 

Following through on their promise to make transphobia the number one focus of legislation moving forward, one of the chambers of Congress has passed a bill that would remove federal protections against discrimination for trans students.

2024 was an eventful year, and that wasn’t always a good thing. We know what we need to solve inequality in 2024 – community wealth-building, taxation of the super-rich, democratic ownership, action on the climate crisis, a fair political system, and tackling corporate profiteering – and the UK could do it now if our politicians […]

The post What happened to inequality in 2024? appeared first on Equality Trust.

Introduction

A report about developing strategic capacity across grassroots groups, and cultivating practices of collective care as an integral component of movement culture. This report explores insights and recommendations from a needs assessment with organisers and is specific to the climate justice movement in Canada | Turtle Island but the wisdom and learning can also be applied to other movements around the world.

About the Memo

In 2023, Canada’s Climate Justice Organizing HUB (the HUB), a project of the Small Change Fund, carried out a needs-assessment process with grassroots organizers across what’s colonially called Canada. In August 2024, they convened for their annual team retreat on “building deeper and wider”, to analyze movement challenges in a more intimate setting. 

This memo includes a summary of key themes and insights that emerged from their collective discussion. They concluded, with examples throughout the memo, that building long-term power in the climate justice movement requires developing strategic capacity across grassroots groups, and cultivating practices of collective care as an integral component of our movement culture.

“The Kids are Alright,” The Who once sang. But about half of American kids are far from alright—in fact, our boys are in real trouble.

The statistics are jarring. Young men without both parents are more likely to spend time in prison than graduate college, according to sociologist Brad Wilcox’s Get Married. In the United States, the second leading cause of death for men under 45 is suicide. Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt contends in Men Without Work that male workforce engagement is at the level it was during the Great Depression.

Political scientist Warren Farrell and counselor John Gray point out in The Boy Crisis that by age nine, children who are not getting enough time with their fathers have telomeres (chromosome indicators which predict life expectancy) 14% shorter than average.

Introduction

A case study of New Disabled South, a not-for-profit organisation in the United States that builds movement capacity and solidarity for disability justice.

This case study is from an online session at the FWD+Organise 2024 Conference held in Naarm/Melbourne. The session featured Dom Kelly from New Disabled South in the United States in conversation with El Gibbs, an Australian disability advocate. In the session, Dom shared what New Disabled South does to build movement capacity and solidarity for disability justice.

The work of Dom and New Disabled South serves as a model for setting up other organisations across the United States and around the world.

Terminology: In this article we have used the terms “disabled people” which is the preference of New Disabled South. To explore terminology related to disability justice see By Us, For Us: Disability Messaging Guide and the People With Disability Australia Language Guide.

Case Study: New Disabled South

A look at the challenges and how New Disabled South is making change for disabled people using advocacy, research and AI.

On this Summer Book Club episode of Follow the Money, renowned journalist and author David Marr joins Ebony Bennett to discuss Killing for Country, his award-winning account of politics and power in colonial Australia.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 24 January 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

To join our free Australia’s Biggest Book Club webinars live, register via our website.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: David Marr, journalist and author

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, The Australia Institute // @ebonybennett

Show notes:

Killing for Country: A family story by David Marr, Black Inc. (October 2023)

Theme music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

In less than 20 years, the average student loan debt for people in their 20s has more than doubled.

Over the last four decades, the price of tertiary education has risen faster than the price of other everyday items. Today Australia collects far more from student debt repayments than it does from the gas industry through the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT)—a fact that reveals the priorities of the multiple governments since 1989, when university course fees were introduced.

The HECS-HELP System

For domestic undergraduates, university fees are covered partially by a government subsidy. The remainder, for which the student is liable, is known as a “student contribution”, and is usually funded through a HECS-HELP loan. Student contributions are government-regulated through a price cap known as the “maximum student contribution amount”.

The repayments on a HECS-HELP debt are deducted once a debtor’s income reaches $54,435. The government has announced plans to raise this threshold. Debts are subject to indexation each year, which is interest charged at the rate of inflation or wage growth, whichever is lower.

On this episode of After America, Dr Emma Shortis and Alice Grundy discuss Trump’s empire pantomime, the devastating California fires and the death of Jimmy Carter.

This discussion was recorded on Monday 13 January 2025 and things may have changed since recording.

Get your tickets for the Australia Institute’s Climate Integrity Summit 2025 now.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Host: Emma Shortis, Director, International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Host: Alice Grundy, Managing Editor, Australia Institute Press, the Australia Institute // @alicektg

Show notes:

‘Australia leases US firebombing aircraft in the northern winter. So what happens when LA burns in January?’ by Mike Foley, The Sydney Morning Herald (January 2025)

Conservatives interested in higher education reform have spun their wheels for decades. They have demanded free speech, stopping racial preferences, abolishing DEI offices, and ending tenure in the hope of getting universities to appreciate Western civilization. While conservative causes are noble, the mismatch between means and ends predestined its reforms to failure.

Opportunities to reform universities are coming. But conservatives must be willing to take the time to understand how universities work and how to use the levers of power within the academic system to their advantage.

As I show in a new report on the University of Wyoming, one such lever available to conservatives is program review.

Program review, which all accreditors endorse, involves identifying academic programs that lose money or do not fit a school’s mission. Even tenured faculty can be released if their programs do not survive review.

On this Summer Book Club episode of Follow the Money, Bri Lee, the award-winning author of Eggshell Skull, Beauty and Who Gets to be Smart, joins us to discuss The Work, a stunning story of art, power, love and money.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 7 May 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

1800RESPECT is the national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support service. Call 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732, chat online or video call via their website.

To join our free Australia’s Biggest Book Club webinars live, register via our website.

Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.

Guest: Bri Lee, author of The Work // @bri_lee_writer

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, The Australia Institute // @ebonybennett

Show notes:

In recent years, insurance costs facing Australian households have surged much faster than inflation, driven by a string of natural disasters, like the 2022 floods in northern New South Wales.

Natural disasters are leaving vulnerable areas virtually uninsurable – or making insurance coverage unaffordable.

Global ratings agency, Moody’s, has found that global insured losses from natural disasters have averaged about US $100 billion over the past five years. FitchRatings reports that insured natural catastrophe costs were “47% above the 20-year average” in the first half of 2023.

The Insurance Council of Australia’s Catastrophe Resilience Report 2022-23 concludes that “global events have cost impacts in Australia, too. The impact of Hurricane Ian in Florida made last year the third-costliest hurricane season on record, contributing to global pressures in the reinsurance market.”

On November 5, the American people delivered President-elect Trump a historic mandate to advance the agenda he championed on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, several Republican senators have already turned the cabinet confirmation process into their own personal vanity project. Even before the process has officially commenced, they have signaled that they may resist confirming, or outright vote against, some of Trump’s nominees. Republicans in that camp would do well to remember—for the good of the country and their own political future—that the electoral mandate was given specifically to President-elect Trump, not the Republican Party as a whole.

Trump far outpaced many Senate Republican candidates on Election Day. He won all five swing states with concurrent Senate races, yet the Republican Senate candidate won in just one of them—Pennsylvania—and by mere thousands of votes despite Trump winning by over 100,000. In the other four swing states—Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan—all four Republican candidates came up short.

Whether a president-elect squeaks out a marginal Electoral College victory while losing the popular vote, achieves a Nixon/Reagan-esque landslide, or winds up somewhere in between as most do, a president has the absolute right, and even obligation, to follow through on as many campaign promises as possible. But for those who believe margins and public perception matter, President-elect Trump’s victory was an undeniable landslide given the current state of the electoral map.

Foreword: This article talks about sex—including sex organs—and sexuality extensively, but in non-explicit ways.

In the 1920s, Joseph Stalin coined the term “American Exceptionalism.” He called it the “heresy of American exceptionalism.” In his Marxist religion, the class struggle outlined in the words of the prophet Marx were gospel. To suggest that the universal history described in Marx’s works somehow didn’t apply to America was therefore a heresy.

This story comes to mind as leftists, in the wake of the election, take to re-evaluating the prudence of wokeness. Their assessment seems to be that overemphasizing sexuality, and to a lesser extent race, was a mistake not because it offended America’s egalitarian sensibilities, but because it distracted from the really urgent inequalities: those of the class struggle. 

If one was paying attention, one saw this line of criticism emerge in response to the New York Times’s 1619 Project. Many of the earliest and most influential critiques of the Project were published on a Socialist website. One of the main critics, the distinguished historian Sean Wilentz, is a critic of exceptionalism in the Stalinist sense of the term (he published an article “Against Exceptionalism” early in his career).

Introduction

Discover how hearts and minds are being shifted on climate change in Indonesia and empowering the Islamic community to take climate action through the concept of Green Islam, which merges Islamic principles with climate advocacy.

This presentation is from a session by Elok Faiqutol Mutia at the FWD+Organise 2024 Conference held in Naarm|Melbourne. Elok is a climate campaigner in Indonesia.

Breaking Out of the Echo Chamber

After discovering in a 2019 survey that Indonesia had the highest levels of climate change denialists in the world Elok realised the need to have climate conversations with everyone.

There is the need to break the echo chamber – climate change is not just for academics, activists, and bureaucrats – it belongs to everyone. – Elok Faiqutol Mutia

Climate and environmental issues were not a top priority for the public because the discourse was limited to activists, academics, and bureaucrats. The public perceived it as an “elite” issue that was less urgent for them.

This is a brief response to Tim Thornton’s recent article for JAPE (94, Summer 2024/2025), ‘Beyond green growth, degrowth, post-growth and growth agnosticism’. I am not intending to go into the arguments he uses in detail but instead to explain the green growth and degrowth positions as I see them. I find his account of it confusing and somewhat misleading — and feel there is a point in setting the record straight.

An LED box truck with transphobic messaging harasses a pediatric hospital and it’s patients in Minneapolis.

Introduction

Learn how to navigate online culture wars and survive social media pile-ons with tips and information from Larah Kennedy, an online community and social media specialist who is General Manager at Quiip.

Larah gave this presentation at FWD+Organise 2024, a conference hosted by Australian Progress in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.

Social Media Trains Us for Outrage

Humans are motivated by social reward such as praise, recognition, attention or acceptance. We feel socially rewarded when we have our opinions validated, receive a strong reaction to something we’ve said or get a sense of belonging/identity from feeling like we are part of a group. We are particularly sensitive to social reward when it comes to expressions of outrage.

Social media algorithms amplify content that sparks outrage, because they are programmed to facilitate social reward. So not only are we motivated by interactions that result in social reward, but we are also more likely to see it across social media platforms.

Is the H-1B visa a talent visa or an outsourcing visa? Many Americans see it as an outsourcing visa, and for good reason. Until tech Right leaders like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy understand this perspective, their attempts to bring in more foreign labor via the existing H-1B program will face increasing opposition.

“Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements.” Back in 2015, this headline made national waves when Disney replaced about 250 tech workers with H-1B holders. Even worse, these workers received no severance unless they trained their foreign replacements.

One employee, Leo Perrero, broke down crying as he testified before the Senate about his experience—especially when he talked about having to explain his firing to his kids. And lest you think that the H-1B is a talent visa, Perrero had to repeatedly explain basic concepts to his foreign replacements.

Reports released by two House committees in December shine a harsh light on the deceptions and oppressive tactics utilized by numerous federal agencies, the Intelligence Community, and leaders of the Democratic Party. During the last year of the first Trump Administration, agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), State Department, and Justice Department (DOJ) initiated improper contacts with media in an effort to censor conservative views. These agencies also took steps to interfere in the 2020 election to benefit Joe Biden.

CEO of Meta (Facebook, Instagram) Mark Zuckerberg, well known human being from earth, has announced that hate speech against LGBTQ+ people is totally fine on the massive social media platforms he owns!

The Wrap with Amy Remeikis

It says something about these mnemonic political times how noteworthy it is when a politician tells the truth.

Which is why it’s usually left to former politicians.

Christopher Pyne did exactly that when he belled the cat about what the Coalition’s nuclear plan is actually about in a recent opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

During his 26 years in parliament, Pyne was a master at obfuscation. He would deploy it with charm, but one of his main strengths, at least for his political allies, was muddying the waters. Give someone a line, repeat it with confidence and before you knew it, the conversation was over what Pyne actually meant, rather than the policy itself.

Here’s a classic example:

But freed from the shackles of politics, and more obviously in the business of lobbying, Pyne is now free to pull back the curtain and gleefully point at the distractions behind it.

In his column, written at a time when most people are still attempting to shut out politics and enjoy life, Pyne spells out what he considers the genius of Peter Dutton’s nuclear ‘policy’.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said, “The protection of hospitals during warfare is paramount and must be respected by all sides, at all times.” International law enshrines medical facilities as sanctuaries for those in direst need but as Dr. Rupa Marya tells host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Israel’s attacks on hospitals amidst the ongoing genocide represent a catastrophic violation of this principle.

In a coalition government, parties make a formal agreement to share power.

In a minority government, the government relies on the ongoing support of crossbenchers.

A hung parliament is where no party or coalition has a majority of seats in the lower house (the House of Representatives)

Power sharing is common

Minority and coalition governments reflect the will of voters, are usually stable and constructive and are commonplace – including the very first Australian Government.

Minority and coalition governments make the conditions under which power is shared particularly visible and accessible. These forms of power-sharing government occur when a government must negotiate with MPs on the “crossbench” between the Government and the Opposition.

Australians have not given one party or coalition a majority of the vote in a federal election since 1975. All Australian states and territories have had minority/coalition governments in the last 20 years, and three have them now. After the last Tasmanian election, then Opposition Leader Rebecca White predicted,

It is very likely that Tasmania will continue to elect minority governments.

Power-sharing parliaments are also common internationally: New Zealand has not had a single-party government since 1994; Canada, Croatia, France, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan and the Nordic
countries, among others, currently have power-sharing governments.

On Tuesday, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced sweeping changes that he claims will reduce censorship and promote better civic discourse on his social media platforms. If fully enacted, these policy shifts across the Meta family of companies would mark a significant departure from the organization’s practices since 2016.

While Zuckerberg’s apparent desire to halt overt information warfare against conservatives is a positive step, we should remain cautious in interpreting this move as a principled stand in favor of respecting constitutional and natural rights. It is far more likely that he is acting out of pragmatism rather than principle, sensing what he has to do given Trump’s victory and the Right’s ascending fortunes.

In the current cultural moment, the woke movement is in decline, and a conservative political ethos is on the rise. X is no longer dominated by progressives. Fortune 500 companies are dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, properly seeing them as liabilities. Despite the media casting Donald Trump and his supporters as extremists, he is set to begin a second presidential term this month with more popular support than he’s ever had. Within the military, pages promoting the LGBTQ agenda are being taken offline. As these shifts continue, expect to see a societal domino effect where leftism loses mainstream legitimacy and counterculture symbols return to their original fringe status.

Normal is coming back in style.