Welcome to Litsy!

"While companies like Meta employ the services of fact-checking organisations, they do very little else to resolve the problem of misinformation."

#NewInternationalist #552 published Nov 2024, & already superceded by the continuing erosion of reporting standards as the "very little else" social media platforms were doing is now extinct.
When voters don't have access to reliable information, democracy is undermined, which is, of course, the point.

'Since colonization, the spurious voice of the white man has attempted to define the history of Australia."
- Editorial, Zoe Holman, #NewInternationalist #554

Focusing on Indigenous rights in Australia. Other stories include a profile in the "Hall of Infamy" section on RFK Jr.; Trump and Palestine (have recent events overtaken or confirmed this article?); a Cartoon History of the Suffragettes; and the survival of social movements in Sudan's war.

"A young boy, Zein Yousef, sleeps on the grave of his mother who died in an Israeli air strike in Gaza."
- Editorial, Amy Hall, #NewInternationalist #553

This edition focuses on the arms trade, so, as usual, not a barrel of laughs. Other stories include oil imperialism, ElΩn Mμsk vs. Brazil, and the role of British propaganda in controlling the narrative of the Kenyan Mau Mau uprising.

"Information is the raw material for society. It is information that turns us from individuals operating in isolation into communities... Authoritarians know this. That's why they spend so much time and energy trying to control the media and our ability to connect with each other. The more we know the less likely we are to tolerate tyranny."
- Editorial, Nanjala Nyabola, #NewInternationalist #552

The concluding article in #NewInternationalist #551 is investigative journalist Matt Kennard's look at the USA's interference in the politics of other countries to further its own agenda. Knowing of the CIA's meddling with the politics of its traditional enemies, I was shocked to read of its propaganda tactics to undermine left-wing UK politicians from at least the end of WWII, most recently JC.
Reading of the UK as a vassal state to the USA is ⬇️

An article in #NewInternationalist #551 on press freedom led me to the website of Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontiers), where there is an index ranking each country. While it could certainly be worse, it's depressing to find the UK at 23/180 given our national pride in freedom of speech. Still, we're better than the USA at 55th, despite the vaunted First Amendment.
Another reason to emigrate to Scandinavia!
https://rsf.org/en/index

"If we are going to sin, we must sin quietly." ☠️

Sir Eric Newton Griffith-Jones, attorney-general of Kenya, 1955-61 in a memo to the British governor of Kenya regarding the suppression of information about and the "plausible deniability" of, the illegal treatment of "Mau Mau rebels", detained in concentration camps built by the UK colonial government within 10 years of the liberation of the WWII nazi death camps.
#NewInternationalist #551

"By December, half of the world's population will have had the opportunity to cast a vote this year."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

#551 of #NewInternationalist Magazine focuses on party politics, which doesn't sound riveting (to me, at least), but it's important as it's how most politics is organised, so I guess I'll have things to learn.

#NewInternationalist #550 had abortion rights as its Big Issue, examining the global trend of liberalisation of laws & attitudes, against a right-wing patriarchal pushback, with the USA being one of 4 countries that have regressed. Which isn't to say that there aren't countries with more oppressive legislation.
I was interested to learn that abortion laws are relatively recent, being introduced about 1840 in USA to prevent enslaved people from ⬇️

The arrival today of the latest #NewInternationalist magazine (#550, Abortion: Why is Your Body Still a Battleground?) reminded me that I have a year's backlog to read! 😳
I do enjoy NI, it's not a chore, but it can be heavy.
I missed one, and then they just accumulated. We're on holiday next week, so while I definitely won't read them all, I'll try to read a couple, at least. Probably start with the latest, then the oldest and work through. 📚