Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalIn America’s Long History of Slavery, New England Shares the Guilt
In America’s Long History of Slavery, New England Shares the Guilt
By CHRISTOPHER L. BROWNJULY 1, 2016
NEW ENGLAND BOUND
Slavery and Colonization in Early America
By Wendy Warren
Illustrated. 345 pp. Liveright Publishing. $29.95.
Here is a picture of Puritan New England far different from the “city upon a hill” that John Winthrop hoped he and the other first settlers would leave for posterity. It opens with the kidnapping of a Patuxet Indian. It closes with one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts justifying the enslavement and sale of Africans. In between, Wendy Warren, an assistant professor of history at Princeton, scatters massacres, a rape, beheadings, brandings, whippings and numerous instances of forced exile. The behavior of New England settlers differed less from that of their contemporaries who established plantation colonies in the Chesapeake and the Caribbean than might be assumed.
Warren’s theme in “New England Bound” — the place of slavery in the making of colonial New England — echoes preoccupations of the moment in the writing of American history, as the pervasive influence of slavery on the nation, its institutions and its cultures attains wider recognition. In time, perhaps, this perspective will no longer surprise, and even now, few familiar with colonial American history will be astonished by Warren’s account. She builds on and generously acknowledges more than two generations of research into the social history of New England and the economic history of the Atlantic world. But not only has she mastered that scholarship, she has also brought it together in an original way, and deepened the story with fresh research.
The economic ties between early New England and the Caribbean deserve to be better known. Prominent merchant families like the Winthrops and the Hutchinsons made their fortunes by linking New England farmers and fishermen to West Indian markets, by sending food to the sugar colonies, where, in the 17th century, the real wealth lay. Enslaved Africans came to New England through these same merchant networks, as one of several imports from the English Caribbean. These forced migrants never became more than 10 percent of the population. Still, many New England households soon kept a captive African or two.
Slave ownership reached down the social scale and into New England’s hinterland. African captives helped replace the Native-American communities displaced by English colonists. As enslaved Africans came in, New England merchants sent Indian captives out, banishing them to Barbados or somewhere else beyond the seas.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/books/review/new-england-bound-by-wendy-warren.html?_r=0
First Alaskan North Slope crude export planned for Nicaragua -sources
Source: Reuters
Fri Jul 1, 2016 6:28pm BST
Related: Regulatory News
First Alaskan North Slope crude export planned for Nicaragua -sources
Alaskan North Slope (ANS) crude will be shipped to Nicaragua for the first time in July, two trade sources said on Friday, underscoring a shift in oil flows to and from the U.S. West Coast.
A parcel of the medium grade crude is on its way to the Pacific Area Lightering (PAL) near southern California on Exxon Mobil Corp's Liberty Bay, a U.S. flagged vessel, according to the sources and Reuters vessel tracking data.
From there, it will transfer to the Liberian-flagged Panamax tanker Chantal for delivery to Nicaragua, where Swiss commodities trader Trafigura Trading LLC will take the crude, said the sources who were not authorized to speak to the media about the matter.
. . .
Global crude flows have changed in the last six months as oversupplied markets force producers to compete aggressively on price. The United States in December lifted a four-decade ban on exporting crude, giving global refiners access to a wider variety of crude.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-crude-exports-idUKL1N19N145?rpc=401
(My emphasis.)
A Policy of Non-Intervention in Venezuela Would be a Welcome Change
A Policy of Non-Intervention in Venezuela Would be a Welcome Change
by Mark Weisbrot
July 1, 2016
The best thing that the United States government could do with regard to Venezuela, regardless of political outcomes there, would be to end its intervention there.
Washington has caused enormous damage to Venezuela in its relentless pursuit of “regime change” for the last 15 years. In March, President Obama once again absurdly declared Venezuela to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” and extended economic sanctions against the country. Although the sanctions themselves are narrow, they have a considerable impact on investment decisions, as investors know what often happens to countries that Washington targets as an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security. The sanctions, as well as pressure from the U.S. government, helped convince major financial institutions not to make otherwise low-risk loans, collateralized by gold, to the Venezuelan government.
Washington was involved in the short-lived 2002 military coup against the elected government of Venezuela, and the U.S. government acknowledged providing “training, institution building and other support to individuals and organizations” who carried out the coup. Afterwards, it stepped up funding to opposition groups and has continued to this day to give them millions of dollars. In 2013, Washington was again isolated in the region and the world when it refused to recognize the presidential election results (even though there was no doubt about the outcome); the U.S. thereby lent its support to violent street protests that were seeking to topple the government. Washington gave political support to similar efforts in 2014.
All this is well-documented and well-known to journalists covering Venezuela, but try finding one at a major news outlet who has the courage to write about it. It’s a bit like reporting on Ukraine and never mentioning Russia.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/01/a-policy-of-non-intervention-in-venezuela-would-be-a-welcome-change/
Researcher finds 'ghost workers' common in migrant farm work
28-Jun-2016
Researcher finds 'ghost workers' common in migrant farm work
University of Colorado Denver
IMAGE: A woman wearing protective clothing peels off stickers to brand the melons she is packing on a field-packing device in California's Central Valley. view more
Credit: Sarah Horton
New research by Sarah Horton, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado Denver, reveals that employers in agricultural industries often take advantage of migrants' inability to work legally by making their employment contingent upon working under the false or borrowed identity documents provided by employers.
Horton's study, published this month in the Anthropology of Work Review, shows that many employers provide employees who do not have legal status with the valid work authorization documents of their friends or family.
Farm workers call this practice, which essentially renders them invisible to the state and federal governments, "working as a ghost."
Horton shows that by providing workers with borrowed documents, many agribusiness companies disguise their employment of undocumented immigrants from authorities, hide the use of child labor, and suppress worker's compensation claims.
More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/uocd-rf062716.php
How Severe Is Venezuela’s Crisis?
How Severe Is Venezuela’s Crisis?
It’s deep but not cataclysmic, and mainstream US media have consistently exaggerated the extent of it.
By Gabriel Hetland
June 22, 2016
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People buy food at a market in Caracas, Venezuela on June 21, 2016. (Mariana Bazo / Reuters)
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Caracas—According to The New York Times, Venezuela is “a country that is in a state of total collapse,” with shuttered government offices, widespread hunger, and failing hospitals that resemble “hell on earth.” There is reportedly “often little traffic in Caracas simply because so few people, either for lack of money or work, are going out.” The Washington Post, which has repeatedly called for foreign intervention against Venezuela, describes the country using similar, at times identical, language of “collapse,” “catastrophe,” “complete disaster,” and “failed state.” A recent Post article describes a “McDonald’s, empty of customers because runaway inflation means a Happy Meal costs nearly a third of an average monthly wage.” NPR reports “Venezuela is Running Out of Beer Amid Severe Economic Crisis”. When Coca-Cola announced plans to halt production due to a lack of sugar, Forbes dubbed Venezuela “the Country With No Coke.” The Wall Street Journal reports on fears that people will “die of hunger.”
Is Venezuela descending into a nightmarish scenario, as these stories suggest? To answer this question I’ve spent the last three weeks talking to dozens of people—rich and poor, Chavista and opposition, urban and rural—across Venezuela. My investigation leaves little doubt that Venezuela is in the midst of a severe crisis, characterized by triple-digit inflation, scarcities of basic goods, widespread changes in food-consumption patterns, and mounting social and political discontent. Yet mainstream media have consistently misrepresented and significantly exaggerated the severity of the crisis. It’s real and should by no means be minimized, but Venezuela is not in a state of cataclysmic collapse.
Accounts suggesting otherwise are not only inaccurate but also dangerous, insofar as they prepare the ground for foreign intervention. This week the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States is holding an emergency meeting to consider OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s invocation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela. This action is taken against countries that have experienced an “unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state,” and can lead to a country’s suspension from the OAS. The Venezuelan government, which despite some foot-dragging has allowed steps toward holding a recall referendum against President Nicolás Maduro, vigorously rejects this charge, as do many OAS member states. It is worth noting that the OAS has not invoked the Democratic Charter against Brazil, which recently experienced what many OAS member states and prominent Latin American observers see as a coup.
Accounts suggesting otherwise are not only inaccurate but also dangerous, insofar as they prepare the ground for foreign intervention. This week the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States is holding an emergency meeting to consider OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s invocation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela. This action is taken against countries that have experienced an “unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state,” and can lead to a country’s suspension from the OAS. The Venezuelan government, which despite some foot-dragging has allowed steps toward holding a recall referendum against President Nicolás Maduro, vigorously rejects this charge, as do many OAS member states. It is worth noting that the OAS has not invoked the Democratic Charter against Brazil, which recently experienced what many OAS member states and prominent Latin American observers see as a coup.
More:
https://www.thenation.com/article/how-severe-is-venezuelas-crisis/
Brazil: the Southern Giant Will Have to Fight
June 29, 2016
Brazil: the Southern Giant Will Have to Fight
by Manuel E. Yepe
Havana.
“Now the poor, the excluded, the landless and the homeless, who had hoped to reach happiness, will have to seek other party associations –or forge new political tools– based on ethics, the elimination of the causes of social inequalities and the search for another possible Brazil”.
Such is the forecast of Frei Betto, the militant journalist, writer, religious revolutionary of the Dominican Order and Theology of the Revolution –former advisor to the President of the Republic of Brazil when Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva held that position– given the serious crisis in that country after the parliamentary and media coup d’etat against the constitutional order in his country.
The first three governments of the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) –two with Lula and one with Dilma Rousseff– represent the best in the republican history of the South American giant.
“45 million Brazilians were rescued from misery; social programs –from the Bolsa Familia to More Doctors– which spread a safety net under the poorest social sectors of the nation. Access to college became popular. The International Monetary Fund stopped bothering our accounts and Latin America gained greater unity. And Cuba was taken out of limbo,” wrote the prestigious religious revolutionary.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/29/brazil-the-southern-giant-will-have-to-fight/
Mexico is Massacring its Citizens and Nobody Seems to Have Noticed
Mexico is Massacring its Citizens and Nobody Seems to Have Noticed
June 27, 2016
The Toronto Star
by John M. Ackerman
Three Amigos Summit the perfect time to hold President Enrique Peña Nieto accountable for human rights violations.
This time it is impossible to look the other way. The Mexican government is normally adept at managing public opinion so the responsibility for the violence and human rights violations ripping apart the country falls on the shoulders of local officials or organized crime groups. But on June 19th that narrative was broken under the heavy weight of the facts.
The press originally reported a “clash between teachers and police” in the town of Nochixtlán in the southern state of Oaxaca. The authorities claimed their agents were unarmed and the protesters had fired on them first. The new U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Roberta Jacobson, was carefully neutral in her first public evaluation of the incident, stating simply that she “lamented the loss of human lives.”
But during the ensuing days the awful truth has trickled out. Thanks to the reports of journalists on the scene, the Mexican government has been forced to accept that the police were in fact heavily armed. And the evidence now points to the commission of a brutal massacre by federal forces against peaceful protesters. These forces are under the command of Mexico´s President Enrique Peña Nieto and receive significant funding from the United States government under the Merida Initiative.
It all began when a group of rural, elementary school teachers closed a highway that runs through the small, mostly indigenous town of Nochixtlán. They were protesting the government´s neo-liberal education reforms and in favour of the release of two top teacher union activists, who had been taken as political prisoners a week earlier.
More:
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/mexico-massacring-its-citizens-and-nobody-seems-have-noticed
Source of Original Popcorn Rescued from Extinction in Mexico
Source of Original Popcorn Rescued from Extinction in Mexico
Caracas,
Wednesday
June 29,2016
MEXICO CITY – The original popcorn, made from the first kinds of maize whose kernels puffed up when put to the fire, originated in Mexico and is in danger of extinction, something entrepreneur Rafael Mier is fighting to prevent with an agricultural project based on a heritage seed bank.
Of the eight types of maize from which popcorn is made, only 514.9 hectares (1,271 acres) of crops remain on their native soil in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, according to the Agriculture, Stockraising, Rural Development, Fishing and Food Secretariat, or Sagarpa
Mier, a conservationist of maize native to Mexico, several months ago came up with the idea of preserving Tolucan maize, one of the eight kinds that are almost gone.
“My interest is that we begin to sow this maize, to begin to see which seeds are still viable, to make sure our genetic diversity isn’t stored in a refrigerator,” he said. Less than two hectares (4 acres) cultivated by Mier near Valle de Bravo, at an altitude of some 2,400 meters (7,700 feet) in the mountains and 136 kilometers (85 miles) west of Mexico City, could be the last vestige of Tolucan popcorn maize.
Originally from the uplands of Toluca, capital of Mexico state, this maize is found at more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level.
More:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2415273&CategoryId=14091
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Estado de Mexico, Toluca, Calixtlahuaca
Fascinating area, popcorn's first home. [/center]
Cuba promotes wind power with Chinese turbines to protect environment
Cuba promotes wind power with Chinese turbines to protect environment
Xinhua • June 22, 2016
GIBARA, Cuba — Some 500 years after ocean winds swept Christopher Columbus’ ships into Gibara Bay, in Cuba’s eastern province of Holguin, officials are harnessing those same sea breezes to generate electricity.
The historic town of Gibara, where the famed explorer set foot during his first voyage to Cuba, is home to two wind farms that are part of a far-sighted government program to promote sustainable energy and reduce the country’s reliance on imported fossil fuels.
The first wind farm, built by Spanish firm Gamesa, opened in 2008 with six 850 kW-wind-turbines, or a total installed capacity of 5.1MW.
Each megawatt is equal to the energy produced by 10 automobile engines, or put another way, one megawatt hour (MWh) is enough to run 330 homes for an hour.
More:
http://progresoweekly.us/cuba-promotes-wind-power-chinese-turbines-protect-environment/
Christian group vandalizes ancient Mexican archeological site claiming it’s linked to ‘Devil worship
Christian group vandalizes ancient Mexican archeological site claiming it’s linked to ‘Devil worship’
By DeadState Staff
Posted on June 28, 2016
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According to local media reports, the sect targeted the ancient ceremonial area because it was “not Christian” and destroyed “at least a dozen” stone alters built by the indigenous Otomi people at the San Bartolo Tutotepec , according to TeleSur TV.
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Members of a Jehovah’s Witness sect have been accused of vandalizing a 7,000-year-old archeological site in eastern Mexico – all in an effort to stamp out “Devil worship.”
The sect targeted the ancient ceremonial area because it was “not Christian” and destroyed “at least a dozen” stone alters built by the indigenous Otomi people at the San Bartolo Tutotepec archeological site, according to TeleSur TV.
Members of the sect say the destruction was motivated by a belief that the ancient Indigenous religion involved devil worship. The perpetrators claim that they were following the word of god by destroying the temple site.
The Otomi people still hold the site sacred and archeologist say that the site is comparible to Mecca for Muslims or the Vatican for Christians, with people making pilgrimages to the site every year. The ancient religion of the Otomis traditionally holds sacred various deities including earth, water, and fire.
More:
http://deadstate.org/christian-group-vandalizes-ancient-mexican-archeological-site-claiming-its-linked-to-devil-worship/
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