Independent Media Institute
While Big Food Supply Chains Have Stalled Due to Lockdown, an Organic CSA Farm Has Risen to the Challenge
Organic CSA farms like Massaro in Connecticut have been able to nimbly reorient marketing and production to serve the urgent needs of their communities. By Elizabeth Henderson The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep craters in the U.S. food supply chain. Dairies that supply milk and food products to restaurants have… »
Charter Schools Find Gold in Federal Government Aid to Small Businesses While Black-Owned Firms Get the Shaft
During the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing economic fallout, the charter industry added to systemic inequities that afflict Black communities. By Jeff Bryant The charter school industry has done much during the COVID-19 pandemic to add to systemic inequities that afflict Black communities by hijacking small business relief aid originally… »
The U.S. Is Determined to Make Julian Assange Pay for Exposing the Cruelty of Its War on Iraq
By Vijay Prashad On September 7, 2020, Julian Assange will leave his cell in Belmarsh Prison in London and attend a hearing that will determine his fate. After a long period of isolation, he was finally able to meet his partner—Stella Moris—and see their two sons—Gabriel (age three) and Max… »
Why U.S. Political Scientists Are Arguing That Evo Morales Should Be the President of Bolivia
By Vijay Prashad and Manuel Bertoldi Three political scientists from the United States closely studied allegations of fraud in the Bolivian election of 2019 and found that there was no fraud. These scholars—from the University of Pennsylvania and Tulane University—looked at raw evidence from the Bolivian election authorities that… »
54 Million People in the U.S. May Go Hungry During Pandemic—Can Urban Farms Help?
In the COVID era, growing food locally has become more essential than ever. By Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner When I call Chef Q. Ibraheem to discuss urban farming in her own cooking career, she’s in the middle of placing an order for microgreens from a small farm in Lake Forest, a… »
Why Cuban Doctors Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize
By Vijay Prashad Five years ago, I read the story of Dr. Félix Báez, a Cuban doctor who had worked in West Africa to stop the spread of Ebola. Dr. Báez was one of 165 Cuban doctors of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade who went to Sierra Leone… »
The Tragic Assassination of Colombia’s Sports Hero Patrón, Lover of Football and His Afro-Colombian Community
By Vijay Prashad and Zoe PC Not much, apart from football, unites the Colombian people. If a 2014 Interior Ministry survey called “The Power of Football” is to be believed, then 94 percent of the Colombian population say that football is either important or very important. Patrocinio Bonilla—called Patrón—was… »
The Hoopla Over the Kamala Harris VP Selection Obscures the Many Young People of Color Who Are Winning Offices Nationally
The debate over Biden’s running mate obscures a far more exciting development in American politics: that young people of color with clearly progressive values are running for office and winning. By Sonali Kolhatkar Joe Biden’s pick of Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate for the 2020 Democratic presidential… »
Why 5G Is the First Stage of a Tech War Between the U.S. and China
By Prabir Purkayastha The U.S. tech war on China continues, banning Chinese equipment from its network, and asking its Five Eyes partners and NATO allies to follow suit. It is a market and a technology denial regime that seeks to win back manufacturing that the… »
How the U.S. Failed at Its Foreign Policy Toward Venezuela
By Vijay Prashad and Érika Ortega Sanoja On August 4, 2020, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Venezuela. Appearing before the committee was U.S. State Department Special Representative Elliott Abrams. Abrams, who has had a long—and controversial—career in the formation of U.S. foreign policy, was… »