RFK Jr. Is Headlining the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit. This Doesn’t Bode Well.

RFK Jr. Is Headlining the Rx and Illicit Drug Summit. This Doesn’t Bode Well.

On April 21, the first day of the 14th annual Rx and Illicit Drug Summit, organizers announced a surprise presenter for the closing plenary on April 24: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., newly minted Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and vocal proponent of building labor camps for people who use drugs.

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A brief, weird history of brainwashing

On an early spring day in 1959, Edward Hunter testified before a US Senate subcommittee investigating “the effect of Red China Communes on the United States.” It was the kind of opportunity he relished. A war correspondent who had spent considerable time in Asia, Hunter had achieved brief media stardom in 1951 after his book Brain-Washing in Red China introduced a new concept to the American public: a supposedly scientific system for changing people’s minds, even making them love things they once hated.

But Hunter wasn’t just a reporter, objectively chronicling conditions in China. As he told the assembled senators, he was also an anticommunist activist who served as a propagandist for the OSS, or Office of Strategic Services — something that was considered normal and patriotic at the time. His reporting blurred the line between fact and political mythology.

A brief, weird history of brainwashing

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AOC-Led Delegation Can Push for New Approach to Latin America

You might not know it by the relatively scant news coverage, but the U.S. congressional delegation, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that visited Brazil, Chile, and Colombia in August marked a big step forward in the development of a new U.S. approach to Latin America and highlighted the important role that the U.S. progressive left has to play in it.

AOC-Led Delegation Can Push for New Approach to Latin America

Related:

AOC urges US to apologize for meddling in Latin America: ‘We’re here to reset relationships’

Asked if the left needs to build a counterweight network, Ocasio-Cortez, whose trip to Latin America was branded “AOC’s socialist sympathy tour” by Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Wall Street Journal newspaper, replied: “I absolutely believe that the battle for democracy must be transnational and it must be global, and it especially must be hemispheric.

Drugs And Arms Smuggling In Europe: A Source Of Financing Ukraine War

Drugs And Arms Smuggling In Europe: A Source Of Financing Ukraine War

Another EU problem is arms smuggling from the war zone. According to Atlantico, Europe has been flooded with weapons transported from Ukraine along with flows of refugees. The most indicative fact cited by French journalists is that since the beginning of the Ukraine war, the price of a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the Marseille black market has collapsed from 2,500 to 300 euros.

Related:

Carpathian ‘gray zone’ narcotics are flooding Europe

Drugs flood Europe through the Armed Forces of Ukraine

According to the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the volume of drug consumption in EU countries has increased markedly this year. And this is despite the fact that in Europe, as a result of the activities of law enforcement agencies, hundreds of illegal drug laboratories are being liquidated, and more than 150 people have been arrested in the recent period alone.

Drugs flood Europe through the Armed Forces of Ukraine (archived)

Video via TFIGlobal

Bad News For The Internet: Congress Looking To Sneak In Dangerous ‘Save The Kids!’ Internet Bill Into Year-End Omnibus

Over the last week or so, I keep hearing about a big push among activists and lawmakers to try to get the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) into the year-end “must pass” omnibus bill. Earlier this week, one of the main parents pushing for the bill went on Jake Tapper’s show on CNN and stumped for it. And, the latest report from Axios confirms that lawmakers are looking to include it in the lameduck omnibus, or possibly the NDAA (despite it having absolutely nothing to do with defense spending).

Bad News For The Internet: Congress Looking To Sneak In Dangerous ‘Save The Kids!’ Internet Bill Into Year-End Omnibus

Related:

KOSA Would Let the Government Control What Young People See Online

Brazil: More Fascism and Neocolonialism or a Path Back to Self-Determination?

By Danny Shaw,

(The author has changed certain names and details to protect individuals’ privacy.)

When you arrive in another country, there is nothing more precious than new friends who adopt you, protect you, and teach you about their language, music, culture, and traditions. For an open-minded traveler, ethnographer and anti-imperialist organizer, this new family is more valuable than any air-conditioned hotel, amount of comfort or money.

Brazil: More Fascism and Neocolonialism or a Path Back to Self-Determination?