Month: April 2021

The World is My Country: A Stunning New Film about World Citizen Garry Davis

Toward Freedom Editor April 28, 2021 Toward Freedom Editor

He was best known as “World Citizen # 1.”.He was a former WWII bomber pilot who was so pained about having bombed a civilian city that, in 1948, he gave up his US national citizenship and declared himself a citizen of the world.  Many more acts of defiance would follow, landing him in prison 34 times.  Now, the late Garry Davis (1921-2013), whose obituary appeared on the front page of the New York Times, is the subject of a newly released documentary by Arthur Kanegis and Melanie N. Bennett called The World is My Country. It is now airing on  public television stations across the country -- including Vermont broadcasts on May 2.

A spoiled ballot in Ecuador’s elections

Medea Benjamin April 20, 2021 Medea Benjamin

Ecuador’s April 11 election that led to a 5-point victory by conservative banker Guillermo Lasso over progressive candidate Andrés Arauz was not what it appeared to be. On the surface, it was a surprisingly clean and professional election. But a fraud-free process for casting and counting ballots does not mean that the election was free and fair. Behind the scenes was a monumentally unequal playing field and dirty campaign designed to quash an Arauz win.

Hunting in Yemen, Hunger Striking in Washington DC

Kathy Kelly April 15, 2021 Kathy Kelly

We all have a responsibility to listen for the screams of children gunned down as they flee in the darkness from the rubble of their homes. We all have a responsibility to listen for the gasps of little children breathing their last because starvation causes them to die from asphyxiation. “It’s not normal for people to live like this,” says Iman Saleh, now on her 17th day of a hunger strike demanding an end to war in Yemen.

How the Murder of George Floyd Affected U.S. Newsrooms

Toward Freedom Editor April 6, 2021 Toward Freedom Editor
Derek Chauvin with his knee on the neck of George Floyd. Wikipedia

By Charlotte Dennett

The televised trial of (former) officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd has once again brought home how deeply embedded racism is in our “Anglo-Saxon” culture. New video footage of Floyd’s cries for help, accompanied by bystanders’ anguished protests throughout the entire 9 minute and 29 seconds of his painful demise, will hopefully have far-reaching ramifications regarding police reform and legislative actions to redress racist policies in the U.S.

What you may not know is that the demonstrations following George Floyd’s death last summer caused considerable introspection and angst in American newsrooms over an issue that may strike some as relatively trivial, but to editors throughout the U.S. was long overdue and fraught with meaning: whether to capitalize the word “black” in reference to “peoples of African ancestry.” read more