My sister said something to me earlier today that further solidified the idea that generations before mine have been constantly made to feel intimidated or afraid of this government and the horrible people who work for it and push its agendas. “They’re watching your social media if you’re not careful about what you say they won’t allow you to get a job or be successful.” Is one of the main things they’ve taught my sisters generation. I told her that you couldn’t intimidate a generation of people who’ve never had this countries protection, care, or protection. I couldn’t give a fuck less if I’m being completely honest with you right now. There’s absolutely nothing this country or the people in it could threaten me with in order to make me shut the fuck up about what they’re doing and the shitty choices they’ve made as a collective. You’ve told generations of Americans that if they don’t shut up and submit to what you’re doing and pushing that their family members would need to move into a state of fear and be afraid for them and that they should be afraid for their livelihoods, their success and their ability to create and build foundations for themselves and it’s about time people get to hear that loud and clear. The fear mongering and the oppression and the silencing of people in this world has got to stop and you only stop cycles of behavior by no longer participating them and changing the way that you behave and react.
They’re trying to make your children uneducated and ignorant by stopping the creation of educational television programs and creating shows and media meant for them that start fucking with their minds from an early age, our teachers are severely underpaid, the curriculum in schools is lacking, they pass laws to take race theory out of the curriculum and stop teaching about the history and oppression of people of color. They ban and attempt to sell apps to American companies so that they can better censor the content that over 1 billion people are consuming every single day that has allowed the truth to spread faster than lies for the first time since this country was founded.
You fucked up letting our generations students with progressive and out of the box ideas into Ivy Leagues to climb your elitist ladder and subjecting generations of individuals to generational trauma and oppression. People have been waiting over forty years for this generation to come into existence. We’re here now. It’s too late.
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Why Panama is on Strike
From afar the Panama protests look like maybe a bunch of hypersensitive eco-fools or maybe like those people who think throwing paint on museums is making any difference instead of going directly to the companies.
The reality is that Panama is protesting way more than just the “contract”. But, let's start with the contract.
First, the company can own Panama by owning land property of the Panama state" inside or outside the 17,000 hectares from what was licensed.” This means that the ANATI (the National Authority of Land Administration) HAS to give it to the mining company with no setbacks.
The mine puts danger around 8 countries of Centroamerica with already reported 200 environmental damages
If the company wants to own private lands that are located inside or outside of hectares of the land that was licensed. The company can own the land and pay nothing in exchange, with no questions.
The contract was done with random permits without the proper process of acquisition.
The contract promises to give Panama a very small quantity of payment to Panama when Panama already spends millions of dollars on the state. This means the company will give Panama less money than what Panama already invests in the country. So we are selling parts of Panama for less than what we already invested.
Panama's government is allowing a foreign company to NOT pay 70% of their taxes during the first 10 years of copper extraction.
The community of Donoso (where the mine is located) says they see tons of copper trucks going out every week and at the same time they complain they haven't seen improvements in their community. Ejm: railroads, electricity.
The company threatens with an international lawsuit of millions of dollars if Panama doesn't sign the contract. But if the company fails to comply with the contract, claims it will only pay 70 million dollars (Which is less than what they make extracting copper from the mine).
The contract has a clause that makes an actual law. The contract will reign according to the laws of Panama, except if a law looks inconsistent. In other words, if Panama makes a law that prohibits mining or a law that obliges them to pay taxes, because of their contract it will not apply at all because of that clause.
The joke was that the president signed the contract in less than 3 hours.
Now, going to the other complaints of the population. Panama already has tons of issues and complaints that are not resolved. These issues have put the whole country on the verge of exploitation.
In September, there were massive protests in several parts of the country because of the sexual assault of the minor Madeleine at the hands of the National Juvenile Assembly. To keep it short. Every year the country makes a national juvenile assembly and this kid was from outside the city representing her district. She ate and drank with each political party and told a classmate to check on her because her water tasted like medicine. The kid hours later was attended by an ambulance with no notification of this to her mom. After this, the kid was behaving erratic and paranoid with a location on her phone that wasn't at the hotel in Panama where all the kids were. The other claims of the event were that all the minors had those dinners with the political parties representatives and on those tables were "Gringos" (foreign European or North American people). Why those kids were sharing tables with gringos in the first place?
When the kid arrived from the trip, she was in a catatonic state and with constant PTSD attacks. There's still no justice or any trace of who were the ones who committed those crimes, and even no accountability by the MEDUCA (The Ministry of Education of Panama).
It is not the first time since such an event happened at the hands of the state. In 2021, we had another state scandal when it was reported that one of the deputies ( Arquesio Arias) of the national assembly raped several women in the indigenous Kuna Yala region. Of course, you can imagine he was dismissed from the charges and when that announcement was published, one of the victims tried to kill herself and got into the ER.
Then there are the deputies who name some of their relatives to the state payroll and don't even work in the state but take tons and tons of money monthly. Meanwhile, the oncologico hospital keeps getting shortages of injections and gloves.
Panama is considered an international hub, one of the richest countries of Latin America and still we struggle with poverty and access to vital things for the population, why? Because people of the state and international companies steal the money, they sometimes build roads and bridges and the costs are higher to the price from the real costs of those constructions, for example, the Odebretch scandal. They charge lots of money, so they can bribe some of the money to both parties (the construction company and the one who is soliciting the construction.
But then again bribing is part of the panamenian culture as we say "juega vivo", bribing the police, the hospital, and the system is all about money and taking advantage of situations as they come even if it is illegal.
Is funny we are all fighting for water, Well my friends here where I am with the famous "Panama Canal" that provides us with most of our income as a nation while having lots of rivers and geographically we are surrounded by both the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean, having all of that I get shortages and cuts of water for more than 6 times a month.
This week, the IDAAN (the company that provides water to the whole nation), has been making shortages all week. My family and I have been saving water tanks each day because of the shortages. I keep joking internally that I have a toxic relationship with the IDAAN since we kind of got used to this and the irony is that while the entire country struggles with the shortages they still sign a contract that will even affect the water flow to the Panama Canal in the long term.
The protests are not just because of the damage to nature is that the government sold us to a foreign Canadian company that has shareholders from the US and China to exploit us leaving us with nothing.
My biggest worry right now is that our current president is sick, the whole country knows he has cancer and during his last speeches, he has been looking like a corpse with now rumours of him leaving the country to intern himself to a hospital in Houston Texas. If he dies then probably the vice president has to take charge, but he has been missing since the protests and people HATE him. So yeah, Panama is on the brink of chaos and if that happens .. well
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A second former Memphis police officer has pleaded guilty to federal charges in the death of Black motorist Tyre Nichols, whose videotaped beating by five Black officers in January 2023 shocked the United States.
Emmitt Martin pleaded guilty to two of four federal counts against him – one for depriving Nichols’s civil rights and another for witness tampering – according to his plea agreement filed in a US district court in the state of Tennessee on Friday.
Sentencing has been set for December 5.
Nichols’s mother, RowVaughn Wells, who was in the courtroom on Friday, said the hearing was “very emotional” and “bittersweet”. [...]
Continue Reading.
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Student protests calling for divestment from Israel on university campuses around the United States are the latest sign of public discontent with the Israel-Palestine conflict. Some notable violent clashes have recently taken place, such as on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, where demonstrators and counter-demonstrators fought at a student encampment overnight on 30 April. However, between 7 October and 3 May, the overwhelming majority of student demonstrations — 97% — have remained peaceful.
…
Police intervention against conflict-related student demonstrations increased by more than eight times in April compared to March. Since October, police have arrested demonstrators and physically dispersed crowds much more frequently at demonstrations with counter-demonstrators. However, in cases where student demonstrators have gathered unopposed, police have intervened against pro-Palestine demonstrations more than five-and-a-half times as often as pro-Israel demonstrations.
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For those that aren't in Australia right now, we have the funniest scandal going on.
Firstly let us introduce you to the eye of the storm: Sam Kerr. Sam is a women's soccer player who has in the last year become one of the most famous and beloved athletes in Australia. Captain of the women's national team, Sam became something of a cult figure after the last Women's Soccer World Cup became a complete unpredicted sensation in Australia, with the whole country getting behind the team.
Sam, up until now, has had probably one of the most squeaky clean images in sport. Generally in Australia it is not uncommon for our sports stars to be caught up in scandals involving drugs:
violence:
drinking their own urine:
or if you're cricket legend Shane Warne, probably all three at once.
Contrasting all this, Sam's image as the squeaky clean saviour for sport made it all the more shocking this last week, when it was announced that Kerr was to face trial after having been charged by the UK police of a "racially aggravated offence" involving a taxi driver.
This was shocking news. Nobody knew what to make of it. Sam was a model for young girls everywhere and a national treasure. "This is why we can't have nice things" screamed the nation. It seemed like all hope was lost.
That is, until, yesterday, when the UK police finally revealed the full details of the case, in which Sam Kerr, sporting legend, was arrested for vomiting in a cab, and then telling an intervening police officer that he was a “stupid white bastard”.
Now we probably don't need to point out that in Australia, vomiting in a taxi and then calling a cop a bastard is about as close to a national culture as we have.
You could not have come up with a better headline to make someone a national hero.
Needless to say, Sam in now being hailed down under as the greatest legend that ever lived, and a petition has already been started to have her picture added to the $5 note.
The tide has swung so far that not one, but TWO, state Premiers have spoken out in support of Kerr, and the Prime Minister has even gone on the record describing her as "a delight".
And so ends the racial abuse saga of our greatest sports hero of all time, and the very first reverse milkshake duck to ever exist.
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In the wake of a tragic incident that claimed the life of an Indian student last year, a Seattle police officer has been removed from service for his appalling conduct. Jahnavi Kandula's (23) untimely death, the result of being struck by a police vehicle, has been overshadowed by the heartless and disparaging comments made by Officer Daniel Auderer.
Interim Chief Sue Rahr's decision to dismiss Auderer was driven by his "cruel comments and callous laughter," which she asserted had inflicted immeasurable pain on Kandula's family. She emphasized that such behavior had eroded public trust in the police force.
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