Trump and the return of the National ‘Emergy’

Al Jazeera English

In October 2018, a “migrant caravan” bound for the United States set out on foot from Honduras. The group was comprised of refuge seekers of all ages fleeing contexts of acute violence and poverty – a regional reality shaped by decades of punitive foreign policy machinations by none other than the US itself.

Then-president Donald Trump, never one to pass up an opportunity for overzealous xenophobic spectacle, took to Twitter to broadcast a “National Emergy” [sic], warning that “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners are mixed in” with the caravan. In preparation for the pedestrian assault on the country, Trump ordered 5,200 active-duty US military troops to be deployed to the southern border along with helicopters, heaps of razor wire, and other “emergy” equipment.

Obviously, the US lived to tell the tale – although the same cannot be said for the thousands of refuge seekers who have died over the years while attempting to reach perceived safety in the country. Now, as Trump gears up for his second round as commander in chief of the nation, we’re in for another round of the anti-migrant “emergy”, as well, which the president-elect has taken the liberty of preemptively declaring. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH

Stronghold

Evergreen Review

To be sure, the Israeli strategy of slaughtering people en masse in order to turn them against anti-Zionist resistance movements has never met with much success. Then again, for a predatory state dependent on perpetual war, conflict resolution has never really been the point. READ MORE AT EVERGREEN REVIEW

What We Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Genocide

FAIR

Imagine for a moment that a magnitude 8 earthquake occurred somewhere in the world, and the Western corporate media refused to use the word “earthquake” in reporting it, instead talking ambiguously of a “tectonic incident” that had caused buildings to collapse and people to die.

Obviously, reporters would be called out for deliberate linguistic ineptness and a bizarre obfuscation of truth. And yet just such a verbal sleight of hand has been on display for more than 14 months in the Gaza Strip, where corporate media outlets continue to dance around the word “genocide” while the Israeli military carries out the systematic mass killing of Palestinians.

Since October 2023, nearly 45,000 people have officially been killed in Gaza—although as a letter to the Lancet medical journal (7/20/24) pointed out back in July, the true death toll at that time was likely to exceed 186,000. A new report (BBC, 11/8/24) from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights indicates that almost 70% of the over 8,000 Palestinian fatalities verified by the UN over a six-month period were women and children; a survey of medical volunteers in Gaza found that “44 doctors, nurses and paramedics saw multiple cases of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in Gaza” (New York Times, 10/9/24). READ MORE AT FAIR.

No surprise Americans are ‘rooting for’ the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killer

 Al Jazeera English

On the morning of December 4, Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare – the largest health insurer in the United States – was fatally shot in New York City. The suspect has yet to be apprehended and a motive has not been established, although the words “depose”, “deny”, and “delay” were found written in permanent marker on bullet casings at the crime scene – a potential allusion to manoeuvres by health insurance companies to avoid paying for the things they are supposed to pay for.

In the social media world, the tears for Thompson were few and far between, with Fox News lamenting on December 7 that a commemorative Facebook post by UnitedHealth Group – the parent company of UnitedHealthcare – had already racked up more than 77,000 laughing emoji reactions. Other social media users scattered witty counter-condolences across various online platforms, such as “My empathy is out of network” and “I’m sorry, prior authorization is required for thoughts and prayers” – a reference to another common tactic employed by UnitedHealthcare and similar firms to decline coverage and increase profit margins. . . .

[I]t’s not difficult to understand why many Americans would fail to mourn the death of a man who symbolised a willfully dysfunctional, for-profit US healthcare system that is literally deadly in itself. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.

Fear and loathing in Culiacan, Sinaloa

 Al Jazeera English

At around two in the morning on Monday, November 25 – just hours after my arrival in the city of Culiacan in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, home of the eponymous drug cartel – I was awakened by gunfire in the street that lasted approximately 20 minutes.

Later in the day, media reports of the night’s casualties began rolling in. According to the newspaper El Pais, at least seven people had been killed in various shootouts across Culiacan and two had been disappeared. A house had been set on fire, and 80 security cameras had been shot up, along with an assortment of shops, restaurants, and homes.

The following day, November 26, five bodies bearing signs of torture were dumped outside the faculty of agriculture of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa. Two more corpses then materialised elsewhere in the city, the latest victims of an internecine cartel war that has been ravaging this Mexican state since September 9. Culiacan is the epicentre of the conflict that, as of November 28, had killed at least 425 people statewide and disappeared more than 500.

This particular spate of violence was triggered by the capture in July of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who was subsequently hauled off to a court in none other than New York City to face trial. Never mind that the United States itself has been a key participant in the international drug trade since forever – or that the simultaneous US demand for and criminalisation of drugs is what makes their trafficking so lucrative, thereby enabling cartels. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.