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Assassinated Amazonian Rubber Tapper Chico Mendes Tried to Save the Rainforest. Meet His Daughter
Democracy Now • 1 week ago

Assassinated Amazonian Rubber Tapper Chico Mendes Tried to Save the Rainforest. Meet His Daughter

We recently spoke to Brazilian environmental activist Angela Mendes, the daughter of Amazonian forest defender and labor leader Chico Mendes, who was assassinated by ranchers in December 1988. She discussed her father’s legacy and her ongoing work to protect the Amazon rainforest from encroachment by ranching and mining industries. “They come here, build their companies, bringing death to the territories, bringing death for the forests and threatening the peoples of the forest,” Mendes said, speaking to Democracy Now! at the COP30 U.N. climate summit in Belém.

Will the U.S. Attack Venezuela? Trump's Anti-Maduro Campaign Seen as Part of a Broader Regional Plan
Democracy Now • 1 week ago

Will the U.S. Attack Venezuela? Trump's Anti-Maduro Campaign Seen as Part of a Broader Regional Plan

As the Trump administration escalates pressure on Venezuela, U.S. military activity across the Caribbean continues to grow. The U.S. has deployed more than 15,000 troops to the region and carried out airstrikes on over 20 boats, killing at least 83 people in operations the White House has justified, without providing evidence, as targeting drug traffickers. On Monday, the administration also designated the so-called Cártel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization, alleging President Nicolás Maduro leads the group. “It’s certainly not a cartel,” says Phil Gunson, senior analyst for the Andes region with the International Crisis Group. He explains that while some parts of the Venezuelan military are involved in the drug trade, “these people are in it for the money,” and declaring them terrorists is “ridiculous.” We also speak with Alexander Aviña, associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University, who says the anti-Maduro campaign is part of a “broader plan” to remake the entire region. “It’s not just about Venezuela.”

"The Epstein Class": Anand Giridharadas on the Elite Network Around the Sexual Predator
Democracy Now • 1 week ago

"The Epstein Class": Anand Giridharadas on the Elite Network Around the Sexual Predator

While much of the recent interest in Jeffrey Epstein has focused on the late sexual predator’s relationship with President Donald Trump, his emails also reveal his close relationships with other powerful figures from the worlds of politics, finance, academia and beyond. The thousands of files released by the House Oversight Committee earlier this month include his correspondence from April 2011 through January 2019, after he was already a registered sex offender for abusing underage girls in Florida. The fact that so many prominent and influential people could ignore those crimes is indicative of their membership in a “borderless network of people who are more loyal to each other” than anything else, says journalist Anand Giridharadas. “He had chosen this particular kind of social network, this American power elite, because he could be sure that it would be able to look away.” Giridharadas is author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World and recently wrote about the Epstein emails for The New York Times opinion section.

It’s One of the Most Influential Social Psychology Studies Ever. Was It All a Lie?
Mother Jones • 1 week ago

It’s One of the Most Influential Social Psychology Studies Ever. Was It All a Lie?

On the night before Christmas in 1954, a Chicago housewife named Dorothy Martin begged her followers to step outside, sing together, and wait, at last, for the aliens.  Things hadn’t been going well for Martin, the leader of a small UFO-based religious movement usually known as the Seekers. She had previously told her followers that, […]

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