I like watching Letho’s Law on Youtube. Today’s video was about the above-named article by Tristram Korten. I’m collecting these articles; Atlantic Black Star posts many as do other Black-owned and operated media businesses. Many Black men are in prison far longer than they should be. Many Black men, after being released from false charges for years of their lives used for free labor. Here is another one with thousands more to go.
Allison L. Williams Hill is an artist, designer, planner, healer, Integrative Health Coach, and inventor. She shares her work and services through
Metaphysical Services and Spiritual Art
“Do All Things In-Vesica”
Registered Medium and Spiritual Counselor, Certified Spiritual Healer, Church of Wisdom, and a member of the Holistic Healers/Healing Works Professional Association
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You know that you have a problem. If you drink too much alcohol, you get soooo relaxed and sleepy, that you cannot get up and relieve yourself. You lay. You struggle. Bet you keep drinking. It makes you feel good. Getting you to wake up one morning. Not only is there wet bed linen, but your ass is in a pond on the memory foam retained in your impression of yourself. You think, “Well, I think I really do have a problem.” The thought is still out of committing to change.
We have done this all over the world. Our climate is changing; our environment has changed. The environment’s changes were evident for decades and yet to this day, I write this in 2022, we still have done little to work on the cause.
The wider picture, moving from you to us, involves the world. We produce waste of all kinds everywhere humans are. The astronauts left ninety-six bags of feces on the moon during their missions between 1969 and 1972.
The earth is full of our pee, our waste is all on this planet which is to be expected. We are born here and share the same elements. Humans created non-organic products for centuries. The first Earth Day was created in 1970 by Senator Gaylord Nelson for which he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton. He knew, along with millions of Americans, that the planet was in trouble.
Earth Day is observed globally since 1990 – thirty years ago.
In 2022 we are still peeing on ourselves and not caring about the pond we wake up in.
Mismanaged waste kills 1 million people annually. Recently, 87,000 tons of covid waste were released in 2021. That figure was just from hospitals, not other users.
WION’s video listed the largest polluters in the world. First is Coca-Cola, the corporation that changed Santa Claus’ suit from the traditional multi-colored wonder to red with white fur trim. Next was Pepsi-Cola, both are essentially run by the same corporation; the competition is good for sales.
The other corporate polluters are:
Nestle- creator of a tremendous amount of waste
Unilever
Model EZ
Mars
P&G
Philip Morris International
Colgate Palmolive
Perfetti Van Melle
We used to use glass bottles. The corporations changed the containers to plastic and made it the consumers’ responsibility to discard the waste. They are the top polluters for the fourth year in a row. A young dead whale was found with 88 pounds of plastic in its stomach. If you choose to steep in your waste, is it reasonable to expect other individuals to steep in your waste?
The waste is in the body, long after it appeared in flora and fauna. It was believed that one made the bed, therefore, one had t lie in it. Not any more. Remake the bed, dammit. Change the future. How do you think the corporations who made the decision to change to plastics will know that you are dissatisfied? If you continue to do nothing, according to the World Bank, world waste will increase by 70% in the year 2050. More pee to steep in.
From a March 21st Greenpeace email:
Big companies like Coca-Cola want “brand impressions.” They want you to see their name and their product everywhere you go.
But I don’t think they’re too happy with Greenpeace. Along with our partners, we went looking and found their brands polluting beaches and riverbanks around the world.
From the most recent count, we’ve found over 476,423 plastic bottles, bags, and other debris (collected by 72,541 amazing volunteers!). Coke “beat” Pepsi by more than 2-1. #1 in trash!2
I don’t know about you, but when I go to the beach, I’m not looking for a view filled with bottle caps and torn labels.
We can push big changes. We can push for a plastic-free world. But it’s going to take a lot of work to do it. I’m up for the challenge — are you?
Write to these polluters, who did not ask consumers what kinds of containers they wanted, to cease. You and I have the power of the purse. We don’t have to buy their products. While you’re at it, resist everything digital. The sell is that it would make our purchasing power easier. It will give them, those with more money than us, the ability to control our accounts and what we can purchase.
Since the events in Ferguson, Missouri, and the death of Michael Brown, I became aware of the most minor infractions the police served Black people creating revenue for the town and keeping the all-white city council employed. The story below is about another town doing similar things.
The town of Brookside, Alabama holds municipal court once a month. The courtroom and the parking lot are packed with people. Police must direct traffic before the 1 p.m. court session starts. (Joe Songer for AL.com).Joe Songer
Ramon Perez came to court last month ready to fight the tickets he’d been handed by Brookside police, including one for rolling through a stop sign and another for driving 48 mph in a 40 zone.
He swore he’d seen the cop from a distance and was careful as he braked.
“I saw him and we looked eye to eye,” the Chelsea business owner said. “There’s no way I was going to run that stop sign.”
When he got to court Dec. 2, he saw scores of people just like him lining up to stand before Judge Jim Wooten, complaining of penny-ante “crimes” and harassment by officers. He saw so many people trying to park in the grassy field outside the municipal building that police had to direct traffic.
He figured there was no point.
“I saw the same attitude in every officer and every person,” he said. “That’s why I hesitated to fight it. They were doing the same thing to every person that was there. They own the town.”
Perez, it appears, was right.
Months of research and dozens of interviews by AL.com found that Brookside’s finances are rocket-fueled by tickets and aggressive policing. In a two-year period between 2018 and 2020 Brookside revenues from fines and forfeitures soared more than 640 percent and now make up half the city’s total income.
By 2020 Brookside made more misdemeanor arrests than it has residents. It went from towing 50 vehicles in 2018 to 789 in 2020 – each carrying fines. That’s a 1,478% increase, with 1.7 tows for every household in town.
The growth has come with trouble to match. Brookside officers have been accused in lawsuits of fabricating charges, using racist language and “making up laws” to stack counts on passersby. Defendants must pay thousands in fines and fees – or pay for costly appeals to state court – and poorer residents or passersby fall into patterns of debt they cannot easily escape.
“Brookside is a poster child for policing for profit,” said Carla Crowder, the director of Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, a nonprofit devoted to justice and equity. “We are not safer because of it.”
“It could be more”
Brookside now faces at least five lawsuits. Advocates for justice reform, cops in other jurisdictions, even Jefferson County’s top law enforcement officials, have begun to question the town’s tactics, and its need for an expanding force.
“It’s my understanding that a guy can go out there and I mean, he can fall into a black hole,” Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said of drivers getting entangled financially. “You know, we’ve had a lot of issues with Brookside.”
Jefferson County Sheriff Mark Pettway said the same.
“We get calls about Brookside quite regularly because they really go outside their jurisdiction to stop people,” Pettway said. “Most of the time people get stopped, they’re going to get a ticket. And they’re saying they were nowhere near Brookside.”
Police stops soared between 2018 and 2020. Fines and forfeitures – seizures of cars during traffic stops, among other things – doubled from 2018 to 2019. In 2020 they came to $610,000. That’s 49% of the small town’s skyrocketing revenue.
“This is shocking,” said Crowder. “No one can objectively look at this and conclude this is good government that is keeping us safer.”
Because people overwhelmed by debt have been shown to turn to crime to pay their fines “an argument can be made that this kind of policing creates crime,” Crowder said.
Brookside Police Chief Mike Jones, who spearheaded the change and grew the police department tenfold, at least, calls the town’s policing “a positive story.” Mayor Mike Bryan – a former councilman who assumed his position last year after the death of the previous mayor – sits and nods in agreement.
Jones said crime when he took over was higher than it appeared from numbers the town reported to the state. He said response times were long because Brookside often had to rely on the Jefferson County Sheriff’s department for service.
He said he’d like to see even more growth in revenue from fines and forfeitures.
“I see a 600% increase – that’s a failure. If you had more officers and more productivity you’d have more,” Jones said. “I think it could be more.”
Stories of how Alabama legal systems criminalize poverty. Written with the support of Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights.
When Jones was hired as chief in 2018, he was the only full-time police officer, he said in sworn testimony for a lawsuit filed against him and the city. By last summer, he said in a deposition, Brookside had hired eight additional full-time officers and several part-timers.
Asked in December how many officers were on staff, he refused to say, citing “security” concerns, though police staff sizes are reported regularly to the government for public consumption.
A department of nine officers in a 1,253-person town is far larger than average. Across the country, the average size of a force is one officer for every 588 residents, according to a Governing Magazine study that examined federal statistics.
Last year, based on Jones’ testimony, Brookside had at least one officer for every 144 residents.
Sheriff Pettway gaped at the Brookside ratio. “I could take over the whole county with numbers like that,” he joked.
Then this month the Brookside department posted on Facebook that it had hired six more officers “in an effort to expand our dedication and commitment to provide superior community service & protection.”
A one-store town
Brookside until recently was known for its quirky Russian food festival and the state’s only onion-domed Russian Orthodox Church. It’s a former mining town, its population about the same as it was a decade ago. Fewer than 100 of its residents graduated college.
Brookside is a poor town, 70% white, 21% Black, with a small but growing Hispanic population and a median income well below the state average. The town survives on the fringes of Birmingham with tax revenue from the Dollar General, which forms the totality of its commercial district.
In 2018, when the town had one full-time police officer and a few part-timers, it reported no serious crimes to the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center. Brookside Police did patrol the 1.5-mile stretch of Interstate 22 within their jurisdiction and wrote tickets that brought in $82,467 in fines. That contributed a 14% chunk of the city’s total income, a number that would be considered high in much of America.
But Brookside revenues from fines and forfeitures soared after that, and the town’s law-enforcement goals — and its reputation — changed.
Brookside, which in 2018 had one full time police officer, now parks a riot control vehicle — townspeople call it a tank — outside the municipal complex and community center. (Joe Songer for AL.com).Joe Songer
By 2020 officers in the sleepy town were undergoing SWAT training and dressing in riot gear, even as the city continued with only a volunteer fire department. It parked a riot control vehicle — townspeople call it a tank — outside the municipal complex and community center. Traffic tickets, and criminalizing those who passed through, became the city’s leading industry.
“We’ll make you famous!”
The police department’s Facebook page – it claims more than a million visitors – became a vehicle for public shaming with embarrassing mugshots and derision for those who owe fines and fees – “Turn yourself in. If we have to come get ya, we’ll make you famous!”
“When you look at their Facebook pages it’s almost like they are bullies. I’ve seen it,” DA Carr said. “I don’t condone it, but you know, I’m not the chief out there.”
And it’s not an idle threat. Arrests on Brookside warrants went from zero to 243 in the span of two years, according to statistics Chief Jones presented to the council.
Jones — again as Mayor Bryan nodded — said the goal of the department is only to help people.
“It’s not about making a dollar,” Jones said.
Yet the town with no traffic lights collected $487 in fines and forfeitures in 2020 for every man, woman and child, though many of those fined were merely passing by on I-22.
Total town income more than doubled from 2018 to 2020 – from $582,000 to more than $1.2 million – as fines and forfeitures rose 640%.
Jones and Bryan said neither the town nor the police department relies on the revenue officers bring in. In fact, they said in November they didn’t know how that money is spent.
Audits by Philip Morgan & Co., covering at least five consecutive years, pointed out as a shortcoming that the town did not have a budget or a policy of adopting one annually. The audits show, however, how the town came to depend on the ticket money.
As more tickets brought in more money, the town began to spend much more. From 2018 to 2020, spending on police rose from $79,000 to $524,000, a 560% increase. The town’s administrative expenditures rose 40% and overall spending jumped 112%, from $553,000 in 2018 to $1.2 million in 2020.
In December the mayor provided AL.com a budget document, based on previous years’ audits. It did not feature a breakout of the police department.
Asked why that was the case, Bryan responded there had been an error, that the heading for the ‘Municipal Court Fund’ was actually the police department budget. “Sorry for the typo,” the mayor wrote.
That document budgeted $646,620 to the police this year.
The town also provided a set of police stats Jones presented to the Brookside council to push for more resources and authority.
It showed that total arrests – custodial, misdemeanor and felony – rose 1,109% from 2018 to 2020. Brookside police made 4.4 arrests in 2020 for every household.
It showed police in 2020 patrolled 114,438 miles in the 6.3-mile town and issued more than 3,000 citations – a 692% increase from 2018.
“We don’t care about tickets,” Jones said. “We don’t like writing tickets.”
‘99 percent of them are lying’
Yet that is hard to swallow for those who line up for court and face financial ruin because of citations. Like those on Dec. 2.
John Walker was stopped in Brookside for following too closely.
“Do you understand what you are charged with?” the judge asked on that first Thursday in December.
“No,” he said. “No.”
Walker told the judge he will fight the charge.
Mayor Bryan dismissed the complaints of those who must appear in court. “Everybody’s got a story,” he said. “And 99% of them are lying.”
Yet the Brookside stories come at an alarming rate.
Sandra Jo Harris, a 52-year-old grandmother, claims in a lawsuit she pulled off I-22 at Cherry Avenue on Jan. 8, 2020, as she often did when she went to visit her daughter. It was nearing dusk, and as she drove into the neighborhood she didn’t think much about the unmarked black SUV with tinted windows on the side of the road. She turned on her lights, according to her lawsuit, because of the approaching darkness.
But when she did, the unmarked SUV pulled into the street, crossed the center line and sped toward her car, blue lights flashing. She was not speeding, or breaking the law, she argued in the suit. She pulled to the side of the road as the SUV pulled behind her, and a wrecker simultaneously parked nearby. It frightened her, and led to more trouble.
Officers, dressed completely in dark, unmarked uniforms approached her, and one accused her of flickering her lights to warn others of their presence, her suit alleges. Unsure what was happening, Harris dialed 911. But an officer grabbed the phone and threw it to the ground, breaking it, the lawsuit says. Police put her in a patrol car and searched her vehicle for drugs.
Harris’ lawyers contend she was taken to the Brookside jail, strip-searched, and told she could be jailed up to two days. She had an asthma attack and a panic attack, but when she knocked on the door to alert a guard, a jailer said if she continued to knock she would be charged with attempting to escape. Eventually she was given an inhaler and treated by paramedics.
Police charged Harris with flickering her lights – or “nuisance of casting lights from motor vehicle on real property at night,” which she argues did not happen and eventually was dropped. She was also charged with resisting arrest. A report quoted in the suit claimed she “tighten (sic) arm muscles from getting handcuff (sic).”
In addition, the police charged her with making a false 911 call, obstructing government operations by refusing to give proper papers, and disorderly conduct for yelling for others to come out of their homes. They let her out of jail at midnight, long after her family had made bond.
Her lawyers argue that the city uses “obscure possible violations” to justify stopping and searching passersby, hoping to add more offenses in a sort of highway lottery to fill the coffers.
“Brookside has operated its police and court system with the primary objective of obtaining revenue from motorists traveling on or near Interstate-22,” Harris’ lawyers wrote in a suit filed last year. “It has had a continued practice of stopping and ticketing scores of vehicles daily, doing so without probable cause or reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.”
K9 Cash
Brookside has two drug-sniffing dogs — one named K9 Cash — to search the cars of stopped motorists.
Most of the vehicles Brookside Police drive are unmarked, and tinted.
Chief Jones testified under oath that just one of the 10 Brookside vehicles is painted with police striping, but nine others bear no emblems, and seven are tinted all the way around, making it impossible to see inside. Jones testified his officers wear gray uniforms with no Brookside insignias.
Brookside, Alabama Police dog K9 Cash
In another case, Brookside police last year confiscated a 2014 Honda Civic owned by a man named Sean Wattson, even though Wattson was not driving and was not in the car, according to a lawsuit he filed against the town. He lent his car to a friend, who was pulled over and arrested for drug possession.
Wattson claims he was unaware of the drugs. Still, police seized his car, and refused to return it, though they didn’t begin official forfeiture proceedings.
Both lawsuits continue.
Secret agent names
Neither the mayor nor chief would talk about pending litigation, but both said they have reviewed the cases involved, including bodycam footage, and said they found no wrongdoing on the city’s part. They would not share the footage.
Jones blamed the lawsuits on “ambulance-chasing attorneys.”
But lawyers and law enforcement officers across central Alabama have raised questions about things in Brookside they say they have never otherwise come across.
Lawyer Martin Weinberg had a client in Brookside, a young man named Thomas Hall, who was stopped for speeding and found with a small amount of marijuana.
He was charged with misdemeanor possession, but also five counts of possession of drug paraphernalia, for:
Rolling papers
The baggie that held the marijuana
Cigar wrappers
A small jar “that once may have held marijuana”
And a small tray that “might have” been used to roll a joint
The names of the officers were not listed on the tickets in secretive Brookside. Instead, the arresting officer was listed as “Agent JS,” while the assisting officer was “Agent AR.”
A judge set Hall’s fines at $6,000, and he had to post $12,000 bond while he appealed the case, an amount Weinberg considered excessive, and one that would prevent defendants without money or support from arguing their cases in state court.
Hall did appeal, and a Jefferson County judge ultimately dismissed the charges.
Bill Dawson, a lawyer who has represented several clients in Brookside, said defendants have faced possession charges for a joint, with paraphernalia charges tacked on for the paper it was rolled in.
“I’ve never seen a possession case split like that,” he said. “It’s unheard of.”
“False left-lane violation”
Dawson also represents Victoria Brumlow, a young woman who – like hundreds more – was stopped on I-22 and ticketed for driving on the left lane of the interstate. Not speeding, not swerving, just using the left lane.
A Brookside officer ticketed Brumlow under Alabama code section 32-5-77, which her lawyers contend does not contain a crime. But it’s a common charge in Brookside.
She argued that she only drove in the left lane to pass other vehicles, and her ticket – on May 26, 2019 – came five months before Alabama’s Anti-Road Rage Act, a law making it illegal to drive in the left lane of an interstate for more than a mile and a half, went into effect.
Brookside police officers in sworn depositions indicated they did not follow drivers for a full mile and a half before or after the new law was passed, and they continued to write tickets under the old law after the new road rage bill passed.
In May of 2019, the month Brumlow was stopped, Brookside officers ticketed 75 people for driving in the left lane. Between April 2018 and June 2020, they handed out 406 of those tickets, or about 15 a month, according to documents filed in the lawsuit.
“It was something that I should not have been stopped for,” Brumlow said in sworn testimony. “And while sitting in court I heard that half the court was also stopped for the same thing.”
Brumlow pleaded not guilty, and had to go to court over and over again as the case was postponed. A court worker told her she would have to plead guilty or go to driving school. She fought it instead.
Dawson argued in a lawsuit against Brookside and Chief Jones that “Brookside has continuously used the false left lane violation as a reason to stop and detain hundreds of motorists. The motive … was to generate revenue for Brookside.”
Brumlow’s uncle, Jeff Brumlow, is the longtime prosecutor and city attorney for the city of Alabaster, and a GOP candidate for Shelby County district judge. He agreed to represent his niece in her traffic case.
In a sworn deposition in the civil suit Jeff Brumlow said he went to court three times before the case was ultimately dropped, and saw many people – he’d guess 25 to 30% of all defendants – charged with the dubious left lane violation.
“What I had watched in court with the use of this particular charge, I mean, just to be quite frank, it offended me that a court would act that way and that a city would act that way toward people who really don’t have that kind of money,” he testified. “So it was a bit of a moral outrage because I had sat in court three times now and it was no longer a mistake.”
“This was an intentional policy of the city and my niece just happened to get caught up in it and happened to challenge it. And it broke her heart, it broke my heart.”
“Creating a law”
Ramon Perez felt that way as well, sitting in the courtroom and hearing defendants plead to the same charges over and over.
He’d been stopped for rolling the stop sign, which he disputes, and speeding, which he also disputes. He was also ticketed for improper signal, though he can’t even fathom how that might have occurred. He was cited for driving with a suspended license — a matter he thought he’d cleared up — but he doesn’t blame Brookside for that.
It is what happened after the stop that is most concerning to him. He feels the police saw him as prey, and treated him as such.
Ramon Perez showed up for court in December ready to fight traffic citations he got in Brookside. He decided to plead guilty and pay the fines after seeing how others were treated.
Perez is Hispanic, and his passenger was a Brookside resident, also Hispanic, who didn’t have her purse with her, Perez said. The officer said he would take them both to jail because she didn’t have her ID.
Which is another problem altogether, Sheriff Pettway said.
“We don’t have a law that says if you don’t have ID, you go to jail,” he said. “If you want to go out there and do something like that, you are creating a law.”
Perez said the officer “went absolutely crazy” over her lack of ID. “He was very ugly from the start.”
Ultimately another officer took Perez to his friend’s house to retrieve her ID, he said. His car was towed — with apologies from the tow-truck driver — costing him several hundred dollars.
Perez ultimately decided to pay the $1,100 fine — on top of hundreds he’d already spent to get his towed car back — and get the heck out of Brookside.
Which is exactly what the town is banking on, according to those who have watched Brookside grow into one of Alabama’s biggest, most troublesome traffic traps.
Perez is angry at his treatment. But he also worries for relatives and employees who live in Brookside. Not all of them can afford to pay their fines as he did, and some have been put on payment plans.
“I feel bad for those guys who struggle,” Perez said. He is still torn, wondering if he should have fought the town harder.
“I should have brought a lawyer, but right now my time is not there,” he said. “But my behavior was right. I know that.”
Sheriff Pettway said those who face charges in Brookside and want to ensure justice can get a bond and appeal their case.
“It may cost some money to go through that process,” he said. “But if you want real justice, I think you’ll go through the process. Fairness and real justice, I believe, is something people are looking for when it comes to law enforcement.
Pettway also said issues with Brookside could draw the attention of the federal government.
“I think it’s one of those situations … that could possibly bring in the feds with some oversight,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they opened up an investigation. You can’t do what’s going on over there.”
This story was published with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights.
The town of Brookside, Alabama holds municipal court once a month. The courtroom and the parking lot are packed with people. Police must direct traffic before the 1 p.m. court session starts. (Joe Songer for AL.com).Joe Songer
Read more stories from our Banking on Crime series:
White House adviser Anthony Fauci is warning that COVID-19 infection rates are likely to rise in the next few weeks in the United States after their dramatic drop following the omicron variant’s rapid spread across the country.
“I would not be surprised if in the next few weeks we see somewhat of either a flattening of our diminution or maybe even an increase,” Fauci said on the ABC News podcast “Start Here,” ABC News reported.
“Whether or not that is going to lead to another surge, a mini surge or maybe even a moderate surge, is very unclear because there are a lot of other things that are going on right now,” he added.
Cases have fallen heavily across the nation over the last two months, with the average number of new cases totaling just over 30,000.
Fauci’s prediction is based on the United Kingdom, where cases have slightly started to go up, although “their intensive care bed usage is not going up, which means they’re not seeing a blip up of severe disease,” Fauci added.
The increase in cases comes as the BA.2 variant is seeing an uptick in the U.S., with Fauci predicting on the podcast the variant will overtake omicron in the future.
The U.S. has just begun easing COVID-19 restrictions after two years of pandemic policies such as masking and social distancing.
All U.S. states have dropped their mask mandates as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said most areas in the U.S. did not need to require masks indoors.
I think that there is a direct connection between what is deposited in the atmosphere and these “predictions” about outbreaks. I am looking forward to Ran Paul’s success in removing Fauci from his post. The United States has experienced an increase in diseases since Fauci’s tenure. Watch GeoEngineering Watch for the latest in what is going on.
Allison L. Williams Hill is an artist, designer, planner, healer, Integrative Health Coach, and inventor. She shares her work and services through
A new Oxfam analysis finds that “99% of humanity” is worse off due to Covid-19 while the world’s 10 richest men have doubled their fortunes during the pandemic.
If a single word can encapsulate why—two years into the global Covid-19 pandemic—the virus continues to spread widely and kill thousands of people each day despite the availability of lifesaving vaccines, the humanitarian group Oxfam International on Thursday suggested that word is “greed.”
“Rich countries derailed the global vaccine rollout with nationalism, greed, and self-interest.”
In a new report titled “Pandemic of Greed,” Oxfam offers a grave assessment of the current state of the public health emergency in an effort to bury the notion that the coronavirus is on its way out and normality is on the horizon—a rosy and potentially dangerous sentiment voiced in recent days by the leaders of rich nations and the executives of powerful pharmaceutical companies.
“While effective vaccines provide hope, their rollout has tipped, from a natural desire to protect citizens, into nationalism, greed, and self-interest,” reads Oxfam’s report, compiled on behalf of the People’s Vaccine Alliance. “Large numbers of people in low-income countries face the virus unprotected and millions of people would still be alive today if they had had access to a vaccine. Big pharmaceutical corporations have been given free rein to prioritize profits ahead of vaccine equality.”
Published almost exactly two years after the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the novel coronavirus a global pandemic, Oxfam’s analysis brings together a slew of data points that, taken together, paint a picture far more dire than the one U.S. President Joe Biden presented during his closely watched State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“Because of the progress we’ve made, because of your resilience and the tools we have, tonight I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines,” Biden said in his speech.
Oxfam’s report counters that “in the United States, where vaccination rates are lower than in Europe, the deaths from Covid-19 have remained high, on a par with previous waves of the pandemic.”
More broadly, the group notes, “an estimated 99% of humanity are worse off because of Covid-19, 160 million people have been pushed into poverty, and 137 million people have lost their jobs.”
While the pandemic has had far-reaching and destructive consequences, touching countless lives directly and indirectly across the planet, Oxfam makes clear in its new report that not everyone’s livelihood has been harmed by the public health catastrophe.
“The richest 10 men doubled their fortunes during the pandemic and a new billionaire is being created every 26 hours,” the report notes. “Of those new billionaires, 40 of them have made their billions profiting from vaccines, treatments, tests, and [personal protective equipment].”
Oxfam emphasizes that the pain inflicted by Covid-19 has been disproportionately concentrated in poor countries, which have been denied sufficient access to vaccines by rich nations and profit-seeking pharmaceutical giants that have hoarded doses and technology.
“Rich countries and corporations have tied up the global response to Covid-19 for their own benefit, leaving the Global South to bear the brunt of this pandemic,” Maaza Seyoum, Global South convenor for the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said in a statement Thursday. “As billions of people are still unable to access vaccines, some have the audacity to claim that the pandemic is over. That is an utter fallacy. Third and fourth doses in rich countries alone cannot erase the ever-rising death toll in lower-income countries.”
To convey the extent of the pandemic’s devastating impact on low-income countries, Oxfam’s report observes:
For every life lost in a rich country, another four people have died in a poorer nation. Fifty-four percent of all deaths caused by Covid-19 have been in low- and lower-middle-income countries, where 10.6 million people have died. 2.7 million people are estimated to have died in high-income countries, 14% of global deaths.
People in poorer nations are 1.3 times more likely to die as a result of the pandemic compared to rich countries. Per capita deaths in low- and lower-middle-income countries are 31% higher than in high-income countries.
Every minute, four children around the world lose a parent or caregiver as a result of the pandemic—almost half of these children are in India, where over two million children have been affected by orphanhood.
Worldwide, Oxfam estimates that 19.6 million people have died as a result of the pandemic. That figure, which includes deaths directly and indirectly caused by Covid-19, is far higher than the official estimate of roughly 6 million deaths from the virus alone. At least 3 million people have died since the highly contagious Omicron variant was detected by South African scientists in November.
“Suggestions that we are entering a ‘post-Covid era’ ignore the continuing deaths in primarily lower-income countries.”
The only way to prevent the emergence of new mutations and finally end the pandemic, Oxfam argues, is “an urgent change in strategy” that includes a suspension of coronavirus-related patent protections, the transfer of vaccine technology to developing countries, and a massive increase in funds for global vaccine manufacturing.
According to one recent study, producing and distributing three coronavirus vaccine doses to every person in low- and lower-middle-income countries would prevent over a million deaths for the cost of $61 billion—a fraction of the $778 billion U.S. military budget.
To date, just 13% of people in low-income countries have received at least one coronavirus vaccine dose.
“After two years, we all want this pandemic to be over, but politicians in rich countries are exploiting that fatigue to ignore the devastating impact of Covid-19 that continues to this day,” Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager, said in a statement Thursday. “While incredibly effective vaccines provided hope, rich countries derailed the global vaccine rollout with nationalism, greed, and self-interest.”
“Suggestions that we are entering a ‘post-Covid era,'” Marriott added, “ignore the continuing deaths in primarily lower-income countries that could be prevented by vaccines.”
Allison L. Williams Hill is an artist, designer, planner, healer, Integrative Health Coach, and inventor. She shares her work and services through
Metaphysical Services and Spiritual Art
“Do All Things In-Vesica”
Registered Medium and Spiritual Counselor, Certified Spiritual Healer, Church of Wisdom, and a member of the Holistic Healers/Healing Works Professional Association.
Get a free 50-minute Health History. Go to In-Vesica/Health for details.
Health Coach Services
A health coach (or health counselor) is a wellness guide and supportive mentor. Together, we’ll work to achieve your goals in areas such as achieving optimal weight, food cravings, sleep, and energy. Through working with me, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of the foods and lifestyle choices that work best for you and implement lasting changes that will improve your energy, balance, and health.
I practice a holistic approach to health and wellness, which means that I look at how all areas of your life are connected. Does stress at your job or in your relationship cause you to overeat? Does lack of sleep or low energy prevent you from exercising? As we work together, we look at how all parts of your life affect your health as a whole.
I lead workshops on nutrition and offer individual and group health and nutrition counseling. I realized a dream to study at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and it changed my life. Let me support you to change yours.
A National Vaccine Pass Has Quietly Rolled Out in America
Red States Are Getting On Board
Forbes
Even as the omicron variant loosens its grip on the world, destinations continue to require travelers to show proof of vaccination. And, increasingly, a paper CDC vaccination card is not cutting it.
While the United States government has not issued a federal digital vaccine pass, a national standard has nevertheless emerged. To date, 21 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico offer accessibility to the SMART Health Card, a verifiable digital proof of vaccination developed through the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), a global coalition of public and private stakeholders including Microsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, the Mayo Clinic and other health and tech heavyweights.
And very soon, at least four more states will be rolling out access to SMART Health Cards. “We’ve seen a notable uptick in states that have officially launched public portals where individuals can get verifiable vaccination credentials in the form of SMART Health Cards with a QR code,” says Dr. Brian Anderson, co-founder of the VCI and chief digital health physician at MITRE.
Allison L. Williams Hill is an artist, designer, planner, healer, Integrative Health Coach, and inventor. She shares her work and services through
Metaphysical Services and Spiritual Art
“Do All Things In-Vesica”
Registered Medium and Spiritual Counselor, Certified Spiritual Healer, Church of Wisdom, and a member of the Holistic Healers/Healing Works Professional Association.
Get a free 50-minute Health History. Go to In-Vesica/Health for details.
Health Coach Services
A health coach (or health counselor) is a wellness guide and supportive mentor. Together, we’ll work to achieve your goals in areas such as achieving optimal weight, food cravings, sleep, and energy. Through working with me, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of the foods and lifestyle choices that work best for you and implement lasting changes that will improve your energy, balance, and health.
I practice a holistic approach to health and wellness, which means that I look at how all areas of your life are connected. Does stress at your job or in your relationship cause you to overeat? Does lack of sleep or low energy prevent you from exercising? As we work together, we look at how all parts of your life affect your health as a whole.
I lead workshops on nutrition and offer individual and group health and nutrition counseling. I realized a dream to study at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and it changed my life. Let me support you to change yours.
Donna Scott Davenport, Juvenile Court Judge in RUTHERFORD COUNTY, TENNESSEE Used Fake Law to Jail Black Children
I choose to believe that someone in Tennessee will run against this woman, who needs to be prosecuted and sentenced. There are fourteen counties in this state. How many young Black children has she directed into incarceration?
The writer mentions that one young girl wanted to be a police officer. These acts, among others, are new ways to snuff out Black minds despite education and greater access to information.
Rutherford Co. judge, who illegally jailed Black children using fake law, faces renewed criticism NEWS by: Gerald Harris
Posted: Oct 11, 2021 / 06:46 PM CDT / Updated: Oct 13, 2021 / 12:22 PM CDT
RUTHERFORD CO., Tenn. (WKRN) – A Rutherford County judge illegally jailed children even when there was no crime committed.
According to a report from WPLN and Propublica, Judge Donna Scott Davenport instituted a policy that all children charged with crimes be processed at the detention center. In 2016, 11 Black elementary school children were detained and or locked up after allegedly witnessing a fight between a 5 and 6-year-old.
UPDATE: (10/13) Middle Tennessee State University has cut ties with Judge Davenport, sending out an email stating that she is no longer affiliated with the university.
Davenport, the sole Rutherford County Juvenile judge, is facing renewed scrutiny over a “filter system” which allowed jail staff to determine when a child is released.
“There has to be something done to everyone who was involved in this,” said Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville). “It’s my understanding that they created a law that wasn’t even on the books in order to make that happen.”
The alleged crime was “criminal responsibility for the conduct of another” — a fake law.
“That is a horrible abuse of power,” Johnson said. “We have the Administrative Office of the Courts, I believe they should take action and investigate.”
“You can’t make up the law,” said James McCarroll Jr., Senior Pastor of First Baptist Murfreesboro.
First Baptist Murfreesboro held the first community meeting, following the arrest in 2016. McCarroll said there cannot be two systems of justice.
“We have a responsibility to all of our citizens to give them a system that looks out for them, that allows them not only have a constitutional right but to have people who are assigned to carry out that constitutional right who have hearts to make sure that people are in the best state and space that their lives could have,” said McCarroll.
Multiple Rutherford County commissioners say, because of pending litigation, they cannot comment.
In 2014, 48% of children were jailed under Judge Davenport’s watch, the statewide average at the time was 5%.
“We are letting kids fall through the cracks in all different ways and this is just one more way we have discovered where DCS has dropped the ball and they need to be looking closely at these programs to make sure that they are following our laws,” Johnson said.
In 2016, lawmakers called for a federal investigation into the arrest and detainment of black elementary school children in Rutherford County. Representative John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville), who was among those lawmakers in 2016, released the following statement this week:
“As I stated in 2016, there is no rational justification for any of this in our society. Both the state and county have obviously failed children and families, predominantly Black individuals, in this and countless other ways. This has notably been true throughout American history in our legal and penal system, and it’s way past time to reevaluate the structural framework which allows such instances of inequity and injustice. Those of us in whom the public has placed its trust have a duty to correct the multi-layered legal and administrative issues facilitating this type of unchecked barbarism. Looking ourselves in the mirror as decision-makers within an inherently flawed system, we must admit that we’ve failed too many for far too long.
As an attorney, I am limited in sharing my personal opinion on sitting judges, but these individuals, through their own acts and admissions, have proven themselves wholly unfit for the important positions they currently hold.”
In a settled lawsuit in 2017, Rutherford County agreed to pay out $397,500 to the 11 children. The officer who signed off on the charges was suspended for just three days.
“It’s a horror show plain and simple, it’s abusive and it doesn’t even resemble law,” said Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville).
As of Monday afternoon, Governor Bill Lee, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, and Lt. Governor Randy McNally, all Republicans, did not respond to request for comment or if the legislature should take this issue up in the next regular legislative session.
Allison L. Williams Hill is an artist, designer, planner, healer, Integrative Health Coach, and inventor. She shares her work and services through
Metaphysical Services and Spiritual Art
“Do All Things In-Vesica”
Registered Medium and Spiritual Counselor, Certified Spiritual Healer, Church of Wisdom, and a member of the Holistic Healers/Healing Works Professional Association.
Get a free 50-minute Health History. Go to In-Vesica/Health for details.
Health Coach Services
A health coach (or health counselor) is a wellness guide and supportive mentor. Together, we’ll work to achieve your goals in areas such as achieving optimal weight, food cravings, sleep, and energy. Through working with me, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of the foods and lifestyle choices that work best for you and implement lasting changes that will improve your energy, balance, and health.
I practice a holistic approach to health and wellness, which means that I look at how all areas of your life are connected. Does stress at your job or in your relationship cause you to overeat? Does lack of sleep or low energy prevent you from exercising? As we work together, we look at how all parts of your life affect your health as a whole.
I lead workshops on nutrition and offer individual and group health and nutrition counseling. I realized a dream to study at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and it changed my life. Let me support you to change yours.
I came across this video while searching YouTube for information on the coronavirus. It is difficult to save this video to a hard drive. This is a “classroom on the air.” Take notes. If you can, sketch. There is a remedy within this video. Thank you, Dr. Zuniga, for making the time to do this. Warning: the ability to save this video for offline viewing has been disabled.
Dr. Null’s articles are fully vetted and informative. The content of this work cannot afford mistakes. It is shocking and hard-hitting, takes-no-prisoners about what mainstream media will not broadcast to common people. The content on health is non-allopathic. The information heals the mind and body and is less expensive to the user.
The COVID-19 pharmaceutical roll-out was successful with social shaming and national mind-controlling media. personally, I’ve lost more friends and have more estranged relationships with relatives. I am sure other people have experienced this as well. The whole thing makes no sense.
I learned about Dr. Null’s radio show, Natural Living on WBAI Pacifica Radio, in 1987. He is the founder of the Progressive Radio Network. I suggest everyone who is concerned about the health and well-being tune in and listen. All of the information is freely available online.
Allison L. Williams Hill is an artist, designer, planner, healer, integrative health coach, and inventor. She shares her work and services through
Metaphysical Services and Spiritual Art
“Do All Things In-Vesica”
Registered Medium and Spiritual Counselor, Certified Spiritual Healer, Church of Wisdom, and a member of the Holistic Healers/Healing Works Professional Association.
Get a free 50-minute Health History. Go to In-Vesica/Health for details.
Health Coach Services
A health coach (or health counselor) is a wellness guide and supportive mentor. Together, we’ll work to achieve your goals in areas such as achieving optimal weight, food cravings, sleep, and energy. Through working with me, you’ll develop a deeper understanding of the foods and lifestyle choices that work best for you and implement lasting changes that will improve your energy, balance, and health.
I practice a holistic approach to health and wellness, which means that I look at how all areas of your life are connected. Does stress at your job or in your relationship cause you to overeat? Does lack of sleep or low energy prevent you from exercising? As we work together, we look at how all parts of your life affect your health as a whole.
I lead workshops on nutrition and offer individual and group health and nutrition counseling. I realized a dream to study at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and it changed my life. Let me support you to change yours.
