On this day in 1954, the US backed a coup against Jacobo Árbenz, the progressive, democratically elected leader of Guatemala, because he sought to restore land to small farmers and Indigenous communities that had been dispossessed by US fruit companies.
@nilwxreports Wow…just wow. The chances of a tornado in the purple which is 25 miles from any point…an essentially 1 in 2 chance. This is very, very serious.
Leen Hijaz, valedictorian at her high school in North Carolina, said the following in her graduation speech:
"Before I leave the stage, I have one last thing to say. Every single person here has a voice; we have the privilege to use it when millions around the world are struggling and suffering to be heard. Whether it’s the millions suffering in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, or families being torn apart by ICE. These are not just an issue here; they are happening there, they’re happening right here as I speak. My point is, we’re not given a voice to stay silent."
Corey Robin, a political theorist at Brooklyn College, writes: "The mere mention of Palestine—maybe ICE, too—sent the high school principal, Melissa Moore, hurtling across the stage to seize the microphone from Hijaz, and stop her from saying these unapproved words.
Just look at this photograph: A young Muslim woman, speaking out, and a desperate, terrified principal trying to shut her down, lest the student say something unauthorized, disapproved, discordant with the views of an increasingly small clique of government officials and voters.
It's so pathetic. It reads like a comic play by Václav Havel. It looks like the desperate last days of the Soviet Union. I can only hope Hijaz speaks for a generation that will, one day, sweep all this garbage into the dustbin of history".