"The overwhelming majority of Palestinians in the West Bank were born into, and have spent their entire lives under, an Israeli military occupation that violates their right to self-determination. A new report by the UK charity War on Want exposes how a core part of what sustains that occupation is a military judicial system characterised by violations of international law.
The report – Judge, Jury and Occupier – is a deep dive into the diverse ways in which Palestinians’ rights are being violated – from arrest, through interrogation, conviction and jail time. It reflects the experiences of Palestinian lawyers and human rights groups....
Since 1967, for example, Israel has decreed more than 411 Palestinian organisations illegal, including all the major Palestinian political parties. Palestinian civilians are then prosecuted for 'membership and activity in an unlawful association', a key tool in Israel’s repression of anti-occupation activism."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/06/israel-military-courts-palestinians-law-uk
-->Yes, Israeli laws oppress five million Palestinians who are caught up in the illegal occupation of their homeland. Where is the NYT in all this? Our "newspaper of record" routinely leaves out the details of that oppression, like this story.
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Common Dreams:"After eight members of the Democratic caucus joined all 50 Republicans in the U.S. Senate on Friday to kill an amendment reattaching a $15 minimum wage provision to the Senate's coronavirus relief package, progressives pointed out that nearly every single one of the lawmakers who voted against the raise for low-paid workers nationwide is a millionaire.
'Today's vote on Senator Sanders' $15 minimum wage amendment is incredibly sad,' Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and author of the forthcoming book Tax the Rich, said in a statement.
'$15 per hour is the bare minimum anyone in this country needs to survive,' Pearl continued, 'and it is baffling that any member of the U.S. Senate, much less a number of Democrats, could look at the crisis this country is enduring and decide that tens of millions of low-income workers, including millions of frontline workers who put their lives on the line every day in the midst of a global pandemic, should not get a raise.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/05/shameful-millionaire-senators-vote-against-popular-minimum-wage-raise-would-lift
-->Most of our media, following the lead of the NYT, omits stories like these. Why remind Americans that we are ruled by millionaires who vote to protect the very richest among us? It is a corrupt system, and our mainstream media is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
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Common Dreams:
"80 House Democrats Urge Biden to Repeal Trump's 'Cruel' Sanctions on Cuba, [and] Reverse US Hostility. 'With the stroke of a pen, you can assist struggling Cuban families and promote a more constructive approach,' the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the president.
According to Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, the advocacy group that helped initiate the letter, the lawmakers' message to Biden 'is a sign of a sea change on Cuba policy in Congress, particularly given its support from all flanks of the Democratic Party and from a dozen influential members of House leadership.' ...
During his presidential campaign, Biden pledged to undo former President Donald Trump's hardening of the six decades-long U.S. economic blockade against Cuba, a shift that he pursued even while Cubans endured acute shortages of food and medicine as a result of the coronavirus crisis."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/03/80-house-democrats-urge-biden-repeal-trumps-cruel-sanctions-cuba-reverse-us
-->Yes, there is possible movement on the illegal and immoral US blockade of Cuba. But the story just gets left out of our mainstream media. It wan't picked up by the NYT or any other major newspaper, although Reuters carried the story.
