Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalIn America’s Long History of Slavery, New England Shares the Guilt
In America’s Long History of Slavery, New England Shares the Guilt
By CHRISTOPHER L. BROWNJULY 1, 2016
NEW ENGLAND BOUND
Slavery and Colonization in Early America
By Wendy Warren
Illustrated. 345 pp. Liveright Publishing. $29.95.
Here is a picture of Puritan New England far different from the “city upon a hill” that John Winthrop hoped he and the other first settlers would leave for posterity. It opens with the kidnapping of a Patuxet Indian. It closes with one of the wealthiest men in Massachusetts justifying the enslavement and sale of Africans. In between, Wendy Warren, an assistant professor of history at Princeton, scatters massacres, a rape, beheadings, brandings, whippings and numerous instances of forced exile. The behavior of New England settlers differed less from that of their contemporaries who established plantation colonies in the Chesapeake and the Caribbean than might be assumed.
Warren’s theme in “New England Bound” — the place of slavery in the making of colonial New England — echoes preoccupations of the moment in the writing of American history, as the pervasive influence of slavery on the nation, its institutions and its cultures attains wider recognition. In time, perhaps, this perspective will no longer surprise, and even now, few familiar with colonial American history will be astonished by Warren’s account. She builds on and generously acknowledges more than two generations of research into the social history of New England and the economic history of the Atlantic world. But not only has she mastered that scholarship, she has also brought it together in an original way, and deepened the story with fresh research.
The economic ties between early New England and the Caribbean deserve to be better known. Prominent merchant families like the Winthrops and the Hutchinsons made their fortunes by linking New England farmers and fishermen to West Indian markets, by sending food to the sugar colonies, where, in the 17th century, the real wealth lay. Enslaved Africans came to New England through these same merchant networks, as one of several imports from the English Caribbean. These forced migrants never became more than 10 percent of the population. Still, many New England households soon kept a captive African or two.
Slave ownership reached down the social scale and into New England’s hinterland. African captives helped replace the Native-American communities displaced by English colonists. As enslaved Africans came in, New England merchants sent Indian captives out, banishing them to Barbados or somewhere else beyond the seas.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/books/review/new-england-bound-by-wendy-warren.html?_r=0
First Alaskan North Slope crude export planned for Nicaragua -sources
Source: Reuters
Fri Jul 1, 2016 6:28pm BST
Related: Regulatory News
First Alaskan North Slope crude export planned for Nicaragua -sources
Alaskan North Slope (ANS) crude will be shipped to Nicaragua for the first time in July, two trade sources said on Friday, underscoring a shift in oil flows to and from the U.S. West Coast.
A parcel of the medium grade crude is on its way to the Pacific Area Lightering (PAL) near southern California on Exxon Mobil Corp's Liberty Bay, a U.S. flagged vessel, according to the sources and Reuters vessel tracking data.
From there, it will transfer to the Liberian-flagged Panamax tanker Chantal for delivery to Nicaragua, where Swiss commodities trader Trafigura Trading LLC will take the crude, said the sources who were not authorized to speak to the media about the matter.
. . .
Global crude flows have changed in the last six months as oversupplied markets force producers to compete aggressively on price. The United States in December lifted a four-decade ban on exporting crude, giving global refiners access to a wider variety of crude.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/usa-crude-exports-idUKL1N19N145?rpc=401
(My emphasis.)
A Policy of Non-Intervention in Venezuela Would be a Welcome Change
A Policy of Non-Intervention in Venezuela Would be a Welcome Change
by Mark Weisbrot
July 1, 2016
The best thing that the United States government could do with regard to Venezuela, regardless of political outcomes there, would be to end its intervention there.
Washington has caused enormous damage to Venezuela in its relentless pursuit of “regime change” for the last 15 years. In March, President Obama once again absurdly declared Venezuela to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” and extended economic sanctions against the country. Although the sanctions themselves are narrow, they have a considerable impact on investment decisions, as investors know what often happens to countries that Washington targets as an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security. The sanctions, as well as pressure from the U.S. government, helped convince major financial institutions not to make otherwise low-risk loans, collateralized by gold, to the Venezuelan government.
Washington was involved in the short-lived 2002 military coup against the elected government of Venezuela, and the U.S. government acknowledged providing “training, institution building and other support to individuals and organizations” who carried out the coup. Afterwards, it stepped up funding to opposition groups and has continued to this day to give them millions of dollars. In 2013, Washington was again isolated in the region and the world when it refused to recognize the presidential election results (even though there was no doubt about the outcome); the U.S. thereby lent its support to violent street protests that were seeking to topple the government. Washington gave political support to similar efforts in 2014.
All this is well-documented and well-known to journalists covering Venezuela, but try finding one at a major news outlet who has the courage to write about it. It’s a bit like reporting on Ukraine and never mentioning Russia.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/01/a-policy-of-non-intervention-in-venezuela-would-be-a-welcome-change/
Researcher finds 'ghost workers' common in migrant farm work
28-Jun-2016
Researcher finds 'ghost workers' common in migrant farm work
University of Colorado Denver
IMAGE: A woman wearing protective clothing peels off stickers to brand the melons she is packing on a field-packing device in California's Central Valley. view more
Credit: Sarah Horton
New research by Sarah Horton, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado Denver, reveals that employers in agricultural industries often take advantage of migrants' inability to work legally by making their employment contingent upon working under the false or borrowed identity documents provided by employers.
Horton's study, published this month in the Anthropology of Work Review, shows that many employers provide employees who do not have legal status with the valid work authorization documents of their friends or family.
Farm workers call this practice, which essentially renders them invisible to the state and federal governments, "working as a ghost."
Horton shows that by providing workers with borrowed documents, many agribusiness companies disguise their employment of undocumented immigrants from authorities, hide the use of child labor, and suppress worker's compensation claims.
More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/uocd-rf062716.php
How Severe Is Venezuela’s Crisis?
How Severe Is Venezuela’s Crisis?
It’s deep but not cataclysmic, and mainstream US media have consistently exaggerated the extent of it.
By Gabriel Hetland
June 22, 2016
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People buy food at a market in Caracas, Venezuela on June 21, 2016. (Mariana Bazo / Reuters)
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Caracas—According to The New York Times, Venezuela is “a country that is in a state of total collapse,” with shuttered government offices, widespread hunger, and failing hospitals that resemble “hell on earth.” There is reportedly “often little traffic in Caracas simply because so few people, either for lack of money or work, are going out.” The Washington Post, which has repeatedly called for foreign intervention against Venezuela, describes the country using similar, at times identical, language of “collapse,” “catastrophe,” “complete disaster,” and “failed state.” A recent Post article describes a “McDonald’s, empty of customers because runaway inflation means a Happy Meal costs nearly a third of an average monthly wage.” NPR reports “Venezuela is Running Out of Beer Amid Severe Economic Crisis”. When Coca-Cola announced plans to halt production due to a lack of sugar, Forbes dubbed Venezuela “the Country With No Coke.” The Wall Street Journal reports on fears that people will “die of hunger.”
Is Venezuela descending into a nightmarish scenario, as these stories suggest? To answer this question I’ve spent the last three weeks talking to dozens of people—rich and poor, Chavista and opposition, urban and rural—across Venezuela. My investigation leaves little doubt that Venezuela is in the midst of a severe crisis, characterized by triple-digit inflation, scarcities of basic goods, widespread changes in food-consumption patterns, and mounting social and political discontent. Yet mainstream media have consistently misrepresented and significantly exaggerated the severity of the crisis. It’s real and should by no means be minimized, but Venezuela is not in a state of cataclysmic collapse.
Accounts suggesting otherwise are not only inaccurate but also dangerous, insofar as they prepare the ground for foreign intervention. This week the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States is holding an emergency meeting to consider OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s invocation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela. This action is taken against countries that have experienced an “unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state,” and can lead to a country’s suspension from the OAS. The Venezuelan government, which despite some foot-dragging has allowed steps toward holding a recall referendum against President Nicolás Maduro, vigorously rejects this charge, as do many OAS member states. It is worth noting that the OAS has not invoked the Democratic Charter against Brazil, which recently experienced what many OAS member states and prominent Latin American observers see as a coup.
Accounts suggesting otherwise are not only inaccurate but also dangerous, insofar as they prepare the ground for foreign intervention. This week the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States is holding an emergency meeting to consider OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s invocation of the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela. This action is taken against countries that have experienced an “unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic order in a member state,” and can lead to a country’s suspension from the OAS. The Venezuelan government, which despite some foot-dragging has allowed steps toward holding a recall referendum against President Nicolás Maduro, vigorously rejects this charge, as do many OAS member states. It is worth noting that the OAS has not invoked the Democratic Charter against Brazil, which recently experienced what many OAS member states and prominent Latin American observers see as a coup.
More:
https://www.thenation.com/article/how-severe-is-venezuelas-crisis/
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