The Leisure Principle
Pipeline promises and neoliberal extraction politics in Chad.
Sociologist Lori Leonard examines the empty promises of an ExxonMobil/World Bank pipeline development and anti-poverty project in Chad - one that succeeded in extracting oil for world makets, but left little compensation for local people - and explains how the project (failures and all) represents a shift in development models for poor nations, away from infrastructure building and toward global export readiness, with the state facilitizing privatization efforts for corporate clients, not its own citizens.
Lori is author of the new book Life in the Time of Oil: A Pipeline and Poverty in Chad from Indiana University Press.
Exoneration's false freedom: Released prisoners face hard times on the outside.
Investigative journalist Alison Flowers reports on the harsh conditions faced by newly exonerated prisoners - from the meager financial compensation and institutional support offered by the state, to the psychological toll of years and decades spent locked up - and explains addressing the plight of exonerees requires confronting the larger problem of American mass incarceration itself, and the brutal mechanisms that devalue both human lives and the ideals of justice.
Alison is the author of Exoneree Diaries: The Fight for Innocence, Independence, and Identity, available now from Haymarket Books.
Farms to plantations: The West's corporate business plan for agriculture across Africa.
Oakland Institute executive director Anuradha Mittal explains how the Gates Foundation and Western governments are using development concerns to corporatize African agriculture - turning small scale farms for local populations into industrial plantations for global export, at the cost of food security, land rights and the environment - and why the future of farming and food in Africa must belong to the African people, not tech billionaires and global agrichemical corporations.
The Oakland Institute released the report The Unholy Alliance: Five Western Donors Shape a Pro-Corporate Agenda for African Agriculture.
A 2016 primaries guide to disenfranchisement and voter suppression.
Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the obstacle course millions of Americans faced trying to vote in the 2016 primaries - from the difficulty securing valid ballots for minorities post 2013 Voting Rights Act repeal, to the ways votes are challenged and discarded after being cast - and explains why voter suppression is not a partisan issue, but a class war assault.
Last week Greg posted the article How California is being stolen from Sanders right now. Download Greg's free comic Steal Back your Vote here.
Not working: Reclaiming time from the demands of capitalism.
Social historian Eva Swidler explores the radical potential of work resistance, explains how the labor movement of the 20th century traded the promise of way less working hours for slightly more wages (and why more radical unions in the future might reexamine that compromise) and makes the case for collective action and working class solidarity as the only way individuals can reclaim their limited time from the unlimited demands of capitalism.
Eva wrote the Monthly Review article Radical Leisure.
Hillary, Bernie and hostage situationalism.
In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen considers the Clinston / Sanders hostage situation, explains why Hillary isn't worth the contempt reserved for say, Dick Cheney, and how Sanders supporters have to re-engage with the Democratic party and its presumptive nominee.
