November, 14 2013, 01:02pm EDT
YES! Magazine Launches COMMONOMICS, New Investigative Series
Laura Flanders Joins YES! Magazine As Local Economies Reporting Fellow, Reporting on Trends in America’s Hardest-Hit Communities
Bainbridge Island, Washington -
YES! Magazine, a pioneer in solutions journalism, and winner of the 2013 Utne Media Award for General Excellence has launched a 10-month investigative series called Commonomics, featuring nationally renowned broadcaster Laura Flanders of GRITtv. The new coverage is made possible with generous support from the New York-based Surdna Foundation.
In her newest piece for the series, "Why Bill de Blasio is the Commonomics Mayor," Flanders points to de Blasio's successful grassroots campaign and landslide victory as evidence of the surprisingly broad support for tackling economic inequity. In another piece, "A Year After Sandy, A Co-op Alliance Could Bring Jobs Back to the Rockaways," Flanders uncovers the significant, yet little-known, role that worker-owned cooperatives are playing in post-hurricane economic recovery.
When it comes to economic reporting in the United States, we're accustomed to hearing about the highs and lows of Wall Street, the employment rate, the housing market, and the ritual budget squabbles in Congress. What we're not used to hearing about is what communities are doing at a local level to build their own economic power and stability.
Commonomics will fill the gap, featuring community-based solutions like the worker-owned cooperatives in Cleveland and South Bronx, the public banking model in North Dakota, or the steadfast efforts of Appalachians transitioning out of the coal economy, which go widely under-reported. These innovative grassroots initiatives are signs of an emerging new economic model, in which human rights and respect for the Earth's limited natural resources, are given as much consideration as the bottom line.
Laura Flanders, YES! Magazine's Local Economies Reporting Fellow, is the lead reporter for the Commonomics series. Flanders, a widely respected author, journalist, and broadcaster, has been at the cutting edge of New Economy coverage. She was one of the first to cover the remarkable story of Chicago window factory workers who went from being laid off en masse, to occupying the factory, and eventually buying it as a worker-owned cooperative that successfully launched last July as New Era Windows. Via her online channel, GRITtv, Flanders has produced probing, in-depth interviews with leading thinkers in the field as well as on-the-ground reports, including a five-part series on worker and consumer co-ops in the New York area.
"I consider Laura to be a key figure in the movement for a new economy," says political economist Gar Alperovitz, "and this fellowship allows her to focus on exactly the kinds of stories that need covering at this critical historical moment."
In her introduction to the Commonomics series, Laura Flanders writes: "In Commonomics, we're talking with people and groups who rarely have a voice in the debate over our economy, and yet have some of the most innovative ideas."
YES! Magazine and GRITtv have collaborated in past years on election coverage and on coverage of grassroots efforts to build local economies, secure rights for workers, and strengthen our democracy.
"Commonomics will build on YES! Magazine's 17 years of covering the movement for strong, local economies," says YES! Magazine executive editor and co-founder Sarah van Gelder. "Whether we're looking at the climate change crisis or the growing rate of income inequality, the most promising solutions are often found at the local level. We're especially excited about the stories Laura will be uncovering on the powerful ideas and the practical actions that can transform our stumbling economy."
YES! Magazine's Commonomics coverage adds to what has been a banner year for the nonprofit media organization, including winning the Utne Media Award for General Excellence, widely regarded as one of the top awards in independent magazine and online journalism. Additional high notes for YES! in the past year were increased visibility for the media organization's pioneering role in the development of solutions journalism. Sarah van Gelder was asked to speak on solutions journalism for the Bellevue TEDx event ("Is There Inspiration in Your Media Diet?"), she led a popular panel on solutions journalism at the National Conference for Media Reform in Denver ("Making Change: Journalism That Solves Problems"), and she wrote the forward for Project Censored's annual compendium of underreported stories.
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"The Biden administration should take the opportunity to drop this dangerous case once and for all," said the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
Mar 26, 2024
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
The United Kingdom's High Court ruled Tuesday that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot immediately be extradited to the United States and gave the Biden administration three weeks to provide "assurances" that the publisher's First Amendment rights will be protected and that he won't face the death penalty.
If the U.S. does not provide the requested assurances, Assange will be allowed to pursue a limited appeal of his extradition. Should the U.S. submit assurances by the April 16 deadline, a hearing will be held on May 20 to determine whether they are "satisfactory."
Assange, whose health has deteriorated badly during his five years in a high-security London jail, faces 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act and a possible 175-year prison sentence in the U.S. for publishing classified information—a common journalistic practice. WikiLeaks disclosures exposed grave U.S. and U.K. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Press freedom and human rights groups say the extradition of Assange to the U.S. would set a dangerous precedent and pose a dire threat to journalism everywhere.
Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement Tuesday that "we are glad Julian Assange is not getting extradited today."
"But this legal battle is far from over, and the threat to journalists and the news media from the Espionage Act charges against Assange remains," said Timm. "Assange's conviction in American courts would create a dangerous precedent that the U.S. government can and will use against reporters of all stripes who expose its wrongdoing or embarrass it. The Biden administration should take the opportunity to drop this dangerous case once and for all."
"It's long past time for the U.S. Justice Department to abandon the Espionage Act charges and resolve this case."
The U.S., which has been aggressively pursuing Assange's extradition for years, previously provided the U.K. government with assurances that Assange would not be held at a supermax prison that's notorious for its inhumane treatment of inmates.
Human rights groups have said such assurances from the U.S. government are "inherently unreliable" and should not be taken seriously by British authorities.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in response to Tuesday's ruling that "prosecuting Assange for the publication of classified information would have profound implications for press freedom, because publishing classified information is what journalists and news organizations often need to do in order to expose wrongdoing by government."
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"The State Department's position," said Sanders, "makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress."
The senator's statement came after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing earlier Monday that the Biden administration has not found Israel "to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance."
Miller was responding to a question about assurances the administration has received from the Israeli government that its use of American weaponry has complied with international law and that it has permitted U.S. humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where the entire population is facing acute hunger.
Under a new Biden administration policy known as NSM-20, recipients of American military aid are required to provide the U.S. government with "credible and reliable" written assurances that they are using such assistance "in a manner consistent with all applicable international and domestic law and policy."
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"Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu's government, the famine will continue."
It is a violation of U.S. law to continue sending military assistance to a country that is obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid. Last month, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked a U.S.-funded flour shipment from entering the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on convoys attempting to deliver aid to desperate Gazans.
Prominent human rights groups have been calling on the U.S. to impose an arms embargo on Israel for months, pointing to documented examples of the Israeli military using American weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.
But the Biden administration has refused to even apply concrete restrictions on American military aid. Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure that approves $3.8 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government and imposes a one-year ban on funding for the primary humanitarian aid organization in Gaza.
Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official, said Monday that Israel's assurances to the U.S. are "not remotely credible" and argued the Biden administration is undermining efforts to combat the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza by accepting the Israeli government's claims.
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Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer called the U.S. assessment "absolutely scandalous."
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Referring to a letter from Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a Monday press briefing that the Biden administration has "had ongoing assessments of Israel's compliance with international humanitarian law" and "have not found them to be in violation, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or the provision of humanitarian assistance."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken had until Monday to certify to Congress that Israel is adhering to President Joe Biden's February 2023 memo stating that "no arms transfer will be authorized where the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit... genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949... or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law."
"These assurances are perspective, but of course, our view on them is informed by our ongoing assessments of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza," said Miller.
Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer called the U.S. assessment "absolutely scandalous."
US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller insisted during a press briefing that Israel has not violated international law in its military operation in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/9OP5xRm0Gx
— The Great Investor (@TheGreatInvest2) March 25, 2024
According to Palestinian and international officials, Israeli bombs and bullets—many of them provided by the United States as part of the $3.8 billion in annual military aid and additional emergency shipments—have killed more than 33,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, the majority of them women and children.
In December, Biden implored Israel to stop its "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza. Since then, Israeli forces have killed or wounded over 40,000 people.
Experts have pointed to the types of munitions being used by Israeli forces as a major reason why so many Gazans are being killed and injured. These include U.S.-supplied 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound guided "bunker-buster" bombs, which Israel says are necessary to target Hamas' underground tunnels.
Aided by artificial intelligence-based target selection systems, Israel Defense Forces commanders are approving bombings they know will cause large numbers of civilian casualties. In a bid to assassinate a single Hamas commander, the IDF dropped at least two 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp on October 31, killing more than 120 civilians.
Even the United States military—which since 2001 has killed hundreds of thousands of people during the open-ended so-called War on Terror—avoids using 2,000-pound bombs in densely populated areas due to the tremendous damage they cause.
Regarding the Biden administration's assessment that Israel is adhering to international law when it comes to providing humanitarian assistance to besieged and starving Gazans, journalist Krystal Ball noted Monday that Blinken "admits 100% of the population is being starved yet somehow certifies that Israel isn't blocking humanitarian aid."
WATCH: "100% of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food insecurity. We cannot, we must not allow that to continue."
U.S. Sec. of State Antony Blinken pushes for an immediate cease-fire and more humanitarian aid into Gaza. pic.twitter.com/U1Mme7fqiJ
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The U.S. assessment stands in stark contrast with two major court rulings—one by the International Court of Justice and the other by a federal court in California—that Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, as well as with findings by at least hundreds of jurists and other experts around the world, including in Israel, that the assault on Gaza is genocidal. Observers accuse Israel of ignoring an ICJ order for Israel to avoid acts of genocide.
On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a draft report that found "reasonable grounds to believe" that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The report recommended suspending military aid to Israel in light of its numerous violations of international law.
A growing number of Democratic U.S. lawmakers and human rights groups have urged the Biden administration to immediately cut off arms transfers to Israel, citing its illegal conduct in Gaza, including mass killing and destruction and the blocking of lifesaving humanitarian aid.
Also on Monday, Palestine defenders rallied in Washington, D.C. to protest a visit to the State Department by Gallant and to demand an end to U.S. aid and weapons to Israel. Another high-level Israeli delegation's visit to Washington was canceled Monday after the U.S. abstained from a U.N. Security Council vote on a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.
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