L.A. community colleges won’t reopen in-person classes and will stay online through spring

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The nation’s largest community college district said it will continue with online classes through the winter and spring terms.

Over 50 US groups to protest the UAE and Bahrain normalization with Israel during deal signing 

Within a week of the deal’s announcement, a secret clause within the deal to sell tens of billions of dollars in weapons to the UAE was revealed. On September 11, 2020, it was announced that Bahrain—another repressive Gulf country involved in the brutal war in Yemen—will also sign a deal to normalize relations with Israel, also without any concessions for Palestinians. It is understood that Bahrain would not be able to make such an agreement without the tacit approval of Saudi Arabia, the leader of the war in Yemen.

PNN/ Washington, D.C./

On Tuesday, September 15, Donald Trump will host a ceremonial signing of deals to normalize relations between Israel and the UAE and Israel and Bahrain. Activists will gather to protest these deals which are not about peace but about furthering Israel’s systems of occupation and apartheid. The protest will be led by a coalition of over 50 Palestinian rights organizations and groups, many of which are led by Palestinian Americans and Arab Americans.

The U.S.-brokered deal which will be signed at the White House by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan is an underhanded way to maintain Israel’s status quo of land theft and apartheid and should be seen in the context of over three years of Trump administration policies that have supported Israel’s war on the Palestinians: moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the illegally occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and creating a so-called peace plan with no Palestinian participation or input. Supposedly, the UAE-Israel normalization deal, which is part of the Trump administration’s fake peace plan, would benefit Palestinians by halting de jure annexation of the West Bank, but not only is de facto annexation a daily reality for Palestinians, but Netanyahu, in his Israeli press conference announcing the deal, said that de jure annexation was “still on the table” and that it was something he is “committed to.”

Within a week of the deal’s announcement, a secret clause within the deal to sell tens of billions of dollars in weapons to the UAE was revealed. On September 11, 2020, it was announced that Bahrain—another repressive Gulf country involved in the brutal war in Yemen—will also sign a deal to normalize relations with Israel, also without any concessions for Palestinians. It is understood that Bahrain would not be able to make such an agreement without the tacit approval of Saudi Arabia, the leader of the war in Yemen.

The normalization of relations between the UAE and Bahrain and Israel, facilitated by the U.S., serves to prop up repressive leaders — US president Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, UAE King Khalifa bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (MBZ), Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa — guilty of gross human rights abuses and war crimes.

A coalition of over 50 organizations and groups that will be protesting on Tuesday released a statement (full statement below) clarifying that calling the deal between Israel and the UAE, the “Abraham Accord”, is nothing more than a thinly veiled ploy “to represent the anti-colonial struggle of the indigenous Palestinians as a religious and fratricidal fight between “the children of Abraham.” It is not. The coalition’s statement takes on the UAE calling them out as, “complicit in Israel’s ongoing theft, colonization, and annexation of Palestinian land. Rather than benefit Palestinians, these deals put an Arab seal of approval on what is one of the world’s worst, most enduring and well-documented records of human rights abuses and grave breaches of international law.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Independent Watchdog Report Finds Inequity in Farm Aid Payments – The New York Times (Trump and Perdue grifting for votes- listening in upper midwest?)

The report, along with a separate analysis of it by Senate Democrats, found that Georgia farmers received an average of $42,545 from the program — more than twice the national average of $16,507 and the highest average per acre in the country.

It also found that eight of the top nine states — measured by average payments per acre of farmland — were in the South, a region at the heart of Mr. Trump’s political base. More generous payment rates for cotton and sorghum, which are grown in Southern states, were part of the reason for the disparity, the report said.

Conservatives once championed the sacredness of every human life – until Covid | Jeff Sparrow

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Any serious response to the virus must impinge on the economy. Market ideologues find this very difficult to accept

In 2017, Tony Abbott denounced Victorian “right-to-die” legislation: “We don’t want anyone ever to be regarded as useless, worthless or disposable,” he thundered.

In 2020, by contrast, he railed against government responses to Covid for seeking to preserve “almost every life at almost any cost”.

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Black churches accuse Donald Trump election ad of inciting ‘white terrorism’

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  • Leaders call for removal of ad depicting worshippers as ‘thugs’
  • Video pairs Biden at prayer with scenes of street violence

Black American church leaders have accused Donald Trump of inciting “white terrorism” against people of colour and depicting churchgoers as “thugs” in a presidential election campaign ad.

They are calling for the advertisement’s removal from display and federal protection from any bias or threats it could provoke.

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Hungary’s students are making a last stand against Viktor Orbán’s power grab | George Szirtes

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The University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest is the latest public institution in the authoritarian leader’s sights

As I write, the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest (SZFE) is being occupied by its students and staff. It is the latest battle, and possibly last stand, against the Hungarian government’s attempt to seize power in independent institutions of all sorts, including cultural ones.

Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party has been in office since its landslide victory in the 2010 elections and there seems little prospect of change. That is because it has already seized control of most other institutions in areas including media, the law, finance, health, research and education. Pretty well everything – and it is still expanding.

Like most institutions of higher education everywhere, especially those with an emphasis on the arts and humanities, SZFE is identified with the “left-liberal” ethos the increasingly authoritarian government is committed to defeating. That is reason enough for Fidesz to muscle in.

In this respect Hungary is just one part of a widespread international conflict between systems of value and governance, one that has caused fierce divisions in many places, sweeping away whatever centre ground there was.

The campaign against the arts was initiated by Fidesz in 2006 when it gained control of the municipalities and declared that it had had enough of the old liberal order. It was, the party stated, their time now. The directors and boards of provincial theatres were sacked and replaced by local Fidesz-appointed figures.

It’s not just theatres, of course. Having assumed office in 2010, the Fidesz government, led by Orbán, immediately looked to seize control of any and all public institutions by much the same method of appointing governing bodies that could grant or withhold funds according to the willingness of organisations to toe the party line. The system has worked with dramatic efficiency. Hungarian society has no modern tradition of organised resistance. With individuals scared of retribution in the form of loss of income, effective solidarity is impossible.

In 2008, a new organisation for the supervision of theatres was established, the Magyar Teátrumi Társaság or Hungarian Theatre Society. It was generously funded and entrusted with the responsibility of carrying forward Fidesz’s programme. At its head was Attila Vidnyánszky, a brilliant provincial director. Vidnyánszky embodied the government’s enthusiasm for patriotism and a nominal Christianity. He more or less runs Hungarian theatre now.

Until recently, universities were independent, state-funded entities from which it was difficult to withhold financial support. Fidesz’s strategic aim became to privatise the universities and, as had proved so successful with other enterprises, impose a board of government-appointed trustees to determine policy, not just in spending, but appointments, the curriculum and all other matters, on an ideological basis.

This is the process currently in train at SZFE. It looked reasonable enough at first, privatisation being seen as a route to greater independence. Universities would become self-governing institutions with proper representation on the board of trustees. But SZFE was required to complete the process in a matter of months, by January 2021.

When it applied for an extension in July of this year, its completion date was actually brought forward to September. There was no consultation at all. A board of trustees was appointed over the heads of the university with Vidnyánszky leading it.

Suddenly, Vidnyánszky was not only running the National Theatre Society, but SZFE too. Despite his spectacular rise to power he regards himself as an avenging outsider and maintains a fierce animus towards many other members of the theatrical profession, particularly those teaching at SZFE, which has produced the greatest Hungarian actors and directors of the last century.

In the meantime, a campaign of abuse is being directed at the university by the government-supporting press.

The student body organised an occupation in support of the university’s senate and staff, and in defence of their own education. The senate has resigned and the staff are considering a strike. The students formed a human chain through the streets of Budapest extending from the university to the parliament building. The chain has received wide popular support. The atmosphere of the demonstration was joyful and calm, but firm.

It is an important moment. It coincides with yet another move to shut down Hungary’s one independent radio station, Klubrádió. Shows of solidarity are rare and may set an example. This one should not be swept under the government’s ever extending carpet.

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