By Detroit Fighting Words Staff

Various community based organizations are demanding change and an end to state repression. They held a press conference on September 3 on Detroit’s eastside.

Several speakers drew the connection between the Trump White House and Mayor Duggan’s regime. People have been brutalized and arrested since late May in line with oppressive measures dictated from Washington to Chief Craig and Mayor Duggan.

Participating organizations in the press conference included the Eastern Michigan Environmental Action Council, Democratic Socialists of America Detroit chapter, Moratorium NOW! Coalition, Detroit Will Breathe, Community Builders of Detroit, the Yemeni Liberation Movement of Detroit, among others.

After the press conference a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against the Detroit Police department prohibiting the use of chokeholds, chemical crowd-control agents and batons.

By Jo-Shing Yang Global Research, July 14, 2020 Market Oracle 21 December 2012

This article was first published on December 21, 2012 by Market Oracle and Global Research 

A disturbing trend in the water sector is accelerating worldwide. The new “water barons” — the Wall Street banks and elitist multibillionaires — are buying up water all over the world at unprecedented pace.

Familiar mega-banks and investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Macquarie Bank, Barclays Bank, the Blackstone Group, Allianz, and HSBC Bank, among others, are consolidating their control over water. Wealthy tycoons such as T. Boone Pickens, former President George H.W. Bush and his family, Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing, Philippines’ Manuel V. Pangilinan and other Filipino billionaires, and others are also buying thousands of acres of land with aquifers, lakes, water rights, water utilities, and shares in water engineering and technology companies all over the world.

The second disturbing trend is that while the new water barons are buying up water all over the world, governments are moving fast to limit citizens’ ability to become water self-sufficient (as evidenced by the well-publicized Gary Harrington’s case in Oregon, in which the state criminalized the collection of rainwater in three ponds located on his private land, by convicting him on nine counts and sentencing him for 30 days in jail). Let’s put this criminalization in perspective:

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens owned more water rights than any other individuals in America, with rights over enough of the Ogallala Aquifer to drain approximately 200,000 acre-feet (or 65 billion gallons of water) a year. But ordinary citizen Gary Harrington cannot collect rainwater runoff on 170 acres of his private land.

It’s a strange New World Order in which multibillionaires and elitist banks can own aquifers and lakes, but ordinary citizens cannot even collect rainwater and snow runoff in their own backyards and private lands.

“Water is the oil of the 21st century.” Andrew Liveris, CEO of DOW Chemical Company (quoted in The Economist magazine, August 21, 2008)

In 2008, I wrote an article,

“Why Big Banks May Be Buying up Your Public Water System,” in which I detailed how both mainstream and alternative media coverage on water has tended to focus on individual corporations and super-investors seeking to control water by buying up water rights and water utilities. But paradoxically the hidden story is a far more complicated one. I argued that the real story of the global water sector is a convoluted one involving “interlocking globalized capital”: Wall Street and global investment firms, banks, and other elite private-equity firms — often transcending national boundaries to partner with each other, with banks and hedge funds, with technology corporations and insurance giants, with regional public-sector pension funds, and with sovereign wealth funds — are moving rapidly into the water sector to buy up not only water rights and water-treatment technologies, but also to privatize public water utilities and infrastructure.

Now, in 2012, we are seeing this trend of global consolidation of water by elite banks and tycoons accelerating. In a JP Morgan equity research document, it states clearly that “Wall Street appears well aware of the investment opportunities in water supply infrastructure, wastewater treatment, and demand management technologies.” Indeed, Wall Street is preparing to cash in on the global water grab in the coming decades. For example, Goldman Sachs has amassed more than $10 billion since 2006 for infrastructure investments, which include water. A 2008 New York Times article mentioned Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and the Carlyle Group, to have “amassed an estimated an estimated $250 billion war chest — must of it raised in the last two years — to finance a tidal wave of infrastructure projects in the United States and overseas.”

By “water,” I mean that it includes water rights (i.e., the right to tap groundwater, aquifers, and rivers), land with bodies of water on it or under it (i.e., lakes, ponds, and natural springs on the surface, or groundwater underneath), desalination projects, water-purification and treatment technologies (e.g., desalination, treatment chemicals and equipment), irrigation and well-drilling technologies, water and sanitation services and utilities, water infrastructure maintenance and construction (from pipes and distribution to all scales of treatment plants for residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal uses), water engineering services (e.g., those involved in the design and construction of water-related facilities), and retail water sector (such as those involved in the production, operation, and sales of bottled water, water vending machines, bottled water subscription and delivery services, water trucks, and water tankers).

Update of My 2008 Article: Mega-Banks See Water as a Critical Commodity …

September 16, 2020 / By Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) / United States

Facebook censors Palestinians for speaking out about occupation and apartheid, and named an ex-Israeli government censor to its Oversight Board

Israel and proponents of Israeli apartheid persistently work to silence Palestinians and supporters of our rights, to stop us from sharing the cruel realities of life under Israeli occupation and apartheid with the world, and to prevent us from advocating for our freedom. Facebook has been a major implementer of this censorship, while also allowing the spread of hate speech targeting oppressed communities, from Myanmar to Kashmir to Palestine.

Now, to make matters worse, Facebook has just appointed a former Israeli government official, Emi Palmor, who previously led Israel’s efforts to severely restrict Palestinian freedom of expression, to Facebook’s Oversight Board. This board will make final decisions for Facebook on permitted and banned content.

Sign this petition from our allies at Jewish Voice for Peace telling Facebook to stop censoring valid speech on Palestine, remove real hate speech, and dump Emi Palmor

Palmor is clearly the wrong person for this role. She acted as chief censor, leading the takedown of thousands of pieces of Palestinian content when she was general director of the Cyber Unit at Israel’s Ministry of Justice.

Share the message that Facebook must stop censoring Palestinians 

Facebook is a monopoly with enormous power, and policies that cause serious harm. Help us to hold them accountable.

Save the date and watch for updates for a September 23 global social media action that we’ll be joining to tell Facebook to stop censoring Palestine.

Hosted by UW Oshkosh Women’s Center, UW Oshkosh and UWO Student Recreation & Wellness

ONLINE

In July 2020, Attorney General Josh Kaul announced the creation of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Task Force. This announcement was the result of consistent advocacy from activists, service providers, and legislators throughout the state. Join this panel to learn more about the missing and murdered Indigenous women epidemic and action you can take to end violence against Indigenous women and girls. Panelists include:
-Dr. Renee Gralewicz, Peacemaker of the Brothertown Indian Nation and Retired Professor of Anthropology and American Indian Studies at UW Oshkosh Fox Cities.
-Dr. Heidi Nicholls, Guest Lecturer of Cultural Anthropology at UW Oshkosh, Adviser of the Inter-Tribal Student Council and Co-Adviser of the Sisterhood
-Elashia Rosado-Cartagena, Co-President of the Inter-Tribal Student Council at UW Oshkosh

Black Lens MKE

Pierce Park, Appleton, WI – 5 P.M.

We Will be getting together to discuss history that isn’t usually told in schools. Speaker: Mark Fleury

UTI- Union de Trabajadores Inmigrantes

James Beckum Park, Milwaukee, WI – 1 P.M.

On February 24, 2016 21 year old Christopher Davis was shot in the head and killed by Police Officer Juan Ortiz of East Troy. The officer never was charged, and has since been made a detective.
The case was a botched drug sting gone horrible, with one officer saying the “planning” took two minutes, and another saying only thirty seconds. The wrong officers arrived to the scene first, some not even in uniform. The information police were given from a CI, trying to reduce his own charges, were never enough to effectuate an arrest. There is also evidence that dash-cam footage existed and now has since disappeared. The family deserves justice. Christopher’s name and story has been silenced for too long. Let us all get together and stand up in honor for Christopher Davis and his life that was too quickly taken from him and all who loved him. Meetup 1pm. (9th street parking).Food and drinks to be available before the march. March start time 3pm. March led by TPR.Special appearances/speakers: The Christopher Davis family
Sedan Smith
Cecil Lacy
Taleavia and Tracy Cole
Jay and Linda Anderson
Pastor Ken
Rebecca BurrellSome families will address the issue of justice before the march, while acknowledgement of Christopher’s story will continue throughout the march.