All posts filed under: United States

American Alliance for Automotive Corporate Social Responsibility (AAACSR) report: The People v. The People’s Car

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The People v. The People’s Car: How Volkswagen’s Corporate Culture is Primed to Deceive As part of its #DefeatTheVice campaign, the American Alliance for Automotive Corporate Social Responsibility (AAACSR) announces the publication of a report analysis: The People v. The People’s Car: How Volkswagen’s Corporate Culture is Primed to Deceive. Download here for free. Earlier this year, the U.S. government “formally labeled the Chinese government’s policies targeting ethnic Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in the northwest region of Xinjiang as ‘genocide,’” constituting serious crimes against humanity. “Malfeasance at Volkswagen in the 21st century did not begin with the so-called ‘dieselgate’ scandal in 2015 but is perhaps what the company is best known for state-side,” reads the report.​​​​​​​ Changchun FAW-Volkswagen worker representative Ai Zhenyu was detained by Chinese police in 2017 for organizing for equal pay. Following his release from police custody, Ai told the China Labour Bulletin: “Volkswagen and Audi have been exposed for their discriminatory practices against Chinese agency workers, they’ve totally disregarded the human rights of Chinese workers.” AAACSR serves as a watchdog to …

Invisible Institute: Chicago Police Torture Archive

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CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE ARCHIVE On Monday, February 15th at 6:30pm, join the Invisible Institute, Chicago Torture Justice Center, Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, and the Pozen Center for Human Rights to honor the history and struggle of survivors and their families, and commemorate the launch of the Chicago Police Torture Archive. VISIT THE ARCHIVE JOIN THE LAUNCH EVENT “The Chicago Police Torture Archive is a human rights documentation of former Commander Jon Burge’s violence against more than 100 Black men, from the 1970s-1990s. The journalistic centerpiece of this site are the profiles of police torture survivors, most of whom were represented by the People’s Law Office of Chicago. “The People’s Law Office (PLO), which had worked alongside activists and in the courts to hold the City to account, donated its files to the Pozen Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago in 2017. Pozen, in turn, asked the Invisible Institute to digitize, curate, and publish the legal archive. Our goal is to make these digitized records accessible to the public and to complement the …

Burge Victims Speak: Exhibit Discussion

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Saturday January 19, 2019 at 1pm Harold Washington Library, 7th Floor Chicago Authors’ Room Hear photographer Amanda Rivkin, Chicago attorney Flint Taylor and survivor Darrell Cannon discuss the history, investigation, resolution and impact of torture by Chicago police commander Jon Burge and his “midnight crew.” This event is in conjunction with the Burge Victims Speak exhibit at Harold Washington Library Center. The talk will be accompanied by a presentation of Rivkin’s portraits.   More info.

TED x Mid Atlantic: Active Resistance

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We are just beginning to understand the massive efforts by foreign governments to influence our elections and plant the seeds of chaos into the United States. Our reliance on digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and the speed at which misinformation can spread has left us vulnerable. So what can we do? Amanda Rivkin says we must be proactive and form an active resistance against these attacks. Amanda Rivkin is a photographer and writer focused on gender, security, political and military issues in Eastern Europe and the United States.   Currently she is at work on a long-term project documenting in portraits and oral histories the victims of Chicago municipal police torture under former Commander Jon Burge. For this work, she has received a grant from the International Women’s Media Foundation Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists and support from The Invisible Institute, a non- profit journalism outfit focusing on issues of policing in Chicago.   In February 2017, she founded Trumpistan Watch, a free weekday e-mail subscription and blog media monitoring Western and …

Quartz: Russia’s meddling to get Donald Trump elected president is straight out of the old KGB playbook

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Russia’s meddling to get Donald Trump elected president is straight out of the old KGB playbook Quartz December 19, 2016 Mysterious arrests. Disappearances. A far away death in an unknown gulag concealed from family for a generation. These are realities for those of us whose families came to the US from Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the last world war and subsequent Soviet occupation. These are also the reasons why every act against Donald Trump now is an act of patriotism on behalf of the American people. During the 1970s and 1980s, KGB defectors warned Americans to beware Russian interference. Those warnings were mostly buried. Today, however, Trump’s rise should be examined in the context of these methods of Kremlin ideological subversion and psychological warfare. The confluence of evidence suggests Donald Trump was supported, and his campaign efforts bolstered, by Russia this election season (as the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency have concluded). Plucked from the KGB’s (now FSB’s) playbook for installing world leaders sympathetic to Moscow, we are now witnessing …

The Sources of Russian Conduct: Russian Reading List

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RUSSIAN READING LIST by Amanda Rivkin Note: In light of the election of 2016 and the unprecedented interference in the American electoral process, it became clear that a generation that fought the global war on terror is woefully unfamiliar with what a much earlier generation of American scholars, diplomats and spies would call “the sources of Soviet conduct,” after former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow George F. Kennan’s now infamous article published in Foreign Affairs in 1947. This reading list is an attempt to plug holes, it is by no means comprehensive nor does it claim to be. It is an attempt to provide a brief selection of readings following key themes of the last century of Russian/Soviet history as it is still relevant today given the Russian leader’s training as a KGB spy and deep background in the Russian state and rise in the wake of a period of profound national humiliation of the 1990s. Usual academic caveats, any errors or oversights are mine and mine alone. BACK IN THE USSR: Ideology + Revolution: Leninist-Marxism …

Access to Justice: Art Works Projects at the Chicago Public Library

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“Less than one percent of those arrested and held in police custody in Chicago in 2013 had a lawyer present, according to Chicago Police Data (source: CNN, May 5, 2016). What challenges face the Chicago community in providing equal justice to all, and how are advocates addressing issues of equal treatment and rule of law globally?” Panelists: Sheila Bedi, Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center, Northwestern University School of Law Flint Taylor, civil rights attorney, People’s Law Office Amanda Rivkin, photographer, Howard Buffett Fund for Women Journalists, International Women’s Media Foundation Moderator: Leslie Thomas, outgoing Executive Director, Art Works Projects Broadcast: CAN-TV (local Chicago public access)