The key ingredient of tear gas is actually a solid powder. To use the gas, you need a dispersal agent, such as the solvent methylene chloride, to carry the particles through the air. A typical tear gas grenade contains a variety of additional chemicals for heat dispersal of the irritant.…
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It is estimated by the US Bureau of National Affairs that “…the dollar cost of corporate crime is over twenty times greater than the combined larcenies, thefts, robberies, and burglaries committed by individuals.”
It is time to make Juneteenth a national legal holiday to celebrate the abolition of slavery in the United States. June 19, 1865 was the day General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and announced that enslaved people were now free. He read General Order #3 which states “The people…
You died under the knee Of white revenge warlords enforcing imaginary utopian hopes and dreams with The reality of racial capitalism. Carrot on a stick, the White capitalists lure. Conscripting black And white working masses. Selling the false narrative, Commodifying black and brown Dreams in endless spirals. Promising utopias unleashed…
April 16, 1862: Congress outlawed slavery in the District of Columbia and the Western Territories, paying money to people who considered themselves slaveowners for the loss of their “property.” President Lincoln recommended that newly freed people emigrate to Haiti or Liberia, since he believed that both “races” suffered when they…
It turns out that reform hasn’t worked: more training; lethal holds; new guidelines for use-of-force, new leadership; more training. These reforms assume that the police are neutrally enforcing a set of laws that are beneficial to everyone. Instead of questioning the validity of using police to wage an inherently racist…
A reader reports Anabolic steroid use by law enforcement officers has been identified by numerous organizations and researchers as a factor in the increasing aggression and violence of police. Derived from the hormone testosterone, steroids have been a controlled substance since 1990, ostensibly available only by prescription. Sought for their…
As millions of people take to the streets to protest racism and police violence, voices of the Right—both its fascist and corporate incarnations—cry out to blame a favorite bogeyman, the “outside agitator.”
The image of far-right groups as just hooded Klansmen or goose stepping Nazis is seriously outdated, and dangerously minimizes the real threat of fascism.
An exchange between Angela Davis and Amy Goodman
The era of dam building is over for a reason. Take the Wynoochee River, a tributary of the Chehalis River. The US Army Corps of Engineers dammed it in 1970. The government promised that the dam would “improve river conditions” for salmon during hot summers. Instead, runs of wild salmon…
A comparison table of the three police departments, plus links to download the city agreements with the police officers' guilds
In addition to the vigils, marches and protests taking place daily in the streets and parks of Olympia after the death of George Floyd, groups and organizations throughout our area found ways to make clear that they want the Black Lives Matter movement to continue; to grow and succeed. Here…
Orca Books Solidarity Co-op ♦ BlackoutDay ♦ Students Stay Woke ♦ Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ♦ Primary candidate forums ♦ Rachel Corrie Foundation ♦ more....
Nearly 30,000 people in Thurston county applied for unemployment after businesses closed in response to the stay-home-stay-safe order. Thousands more were simply out of work and out of luck. At first, rents were paid, here as in much of the rest of the country. Actions at the federal and state…
This May Day, El Comité, along with WAISN (WA Immigrant Solidarity Network), Community to Community (C2C) and Familias Unidas organized a caravan to Olympia to honor the essential labor of farmworkers who work to produce the food we all eat. The arrival of this pandemic has revealed the already abysmal…
The COVID-related strike in Washington state’s Yakima Valley quadrupled in size as workers walked out at three more apple packinghouses. More than a hundred stopped work on May 7 at Allan Brothers Fruit, a large apple growing, packing and shipping company in Naches, in Central Washington.
I’ve owned two rental properties, one of them for over 30 years. I’ve been surprised in recent days by claims that portray landlords as concerned benefactors rather than someone looking to make money outside the waged economy. Online you can find postings by landlords freaked out by the fact that…
There is an important political battle unfolding in Washington’s 22nd Legislative District race. On one side are the nascent revolutionary forces of bold progressivism. On the other side is the corporate establishment, protecting a status quo that puts maximizing investor and corporate profits over basic human rights like housing, medical…
I ran for Olympia City Council in 2017 and was elected that November to a 7-member team charged with leading Washington’s fastest-growing city amidst rising sea levels, rising housing costs, rising homelessness, rising inequality—and rising local and national movements for people and planet over profit. I came on board with…
Not having stable child care is a losing situation for families, communities and the nation. A lack of social investment in child care and early education limits future achievement for kids and opportunities for mothers. The coronavirus epidemic has dramatically changed the face of child care in Washington State, but also offers clues for repairing a steadily worsening system.
Revisar el código fiscal y garantizar el cuidado infantil gratis para la clase trabajadora, mujeres pobres y inmigrantes Sin el cuidado estable de niños, se crea una situación en la donde las familias, las comunidades y la nación van a salir perdiendo. Una falta de inversión social en el cuidado…
After incredible growth in the movement during February, the Thurston Public Power Initiative campaign came to a screeching halt. For some reason, the Washington State government can’t figure out a strategy for gathering signatures online. People bank online, buy all kinds of things online, pay their taxes online—but to make democracy work?
They say “What goes around comes around.” Forty years ago The Daily Olympian (as it was then named) did not serve our community well. The editor-in-chief turned a blind eye to local social and political issues. The newspaper was generally silent on problems and initiatives concerning race relations, gender, growth management, waste reduction, the environment.
I put a rose against the wall of the graveyard, besides hundreds of others on the altar. Candles illuminated countless names and crosses that spanned the entirety of the wall. Every flower represented a womxn who had either been murdered or was missing, all victims of gender-based violence.
Esperar. Esperar means to hope. It also means to wait. How odd -- Poetry
Since the onset of COVID-19, the slogan “We are all in this together” has been heard everywhere. But who is the “we” that is meant? Who is included and who is ignored? Whose life, health and safety are prioritized? Who is allowed to sicken and die? What are the implications…