In Paris on #MayDay , traditional labor-rights marches are melding with pro-Palestinian protests & anti-Olympics demonstrations. Also, some workers who are making the Olympic medals went on strike recently to demand higher pay. By Ellen Francis washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/…

And here you can see officers entering an academic building with their weapons drawn, in response to college students protesting their tax & tuition dollars contributing to a plausible genocide

The police response to standard protest tactics like sit-ins, encampments, building takeovers—all designed to challenge US-backed horrors in Gaza—is over-the-top, writes Tim Dickinson Rolling Stone in 'College Crackdown Shines Spotlight on Violent Cops—Yet Again' rollingstone.com/politics/polit…

Ahead of #Paris2024 Olympics, police clear a migrant camp near City Hall, supposedly 'for security reasons.' “It’s a never-ending cycle. We call it ‘nettoyage social,’ or social cleansing.”-Antoine de Clerck of le revers de la médaille apnews.com/article/france…

My latest piece The Nation - while FIFA will debate sanctioning Israel for its war on the people of Gaza, the American Friends Services Committee staged a youth soccer tournament in Rafah: a reminder that kids with dreams are casualties of this horrid war thenation.com/article/societ…

Great turnout from students and community

For years, Saudi oil giant Aramco has served as an instrument of statecraft. Today, it also serves as a vehicle for projecting soft power through international sports.

Read about how Aramco became a sports powerhouse in my latest for Sports Politika

sportspolitika.news/p/aramco-footb…

In Paris, a police crackdown designed to clear the suburb Seine-Saint Denis of petty crime & street vendors ahead of the #Paris2024 Olympics is putting pressure on an already overcrowded prison. Important work by Layli Foroudi Reuters reuters.com/sports/ahead-o…

This is reminiscent of my VICE report on how the 1976 #Olympics was terrible for the host city, Montreal. I also looked at what went wrong at Rio.

A police crackdown to clear a poor suburb of petty crime & street vendors before the Paris Olympics is putting pressure on an overcrowded prison operating at almost double its capacity. Poor, migrant & homeless populations are disproportionately impacted: reuters.com/sports/ahead-o…

The Olympics can feel more like a security event than a sports event: ' #Paris2024 : France plans 6,000 police to secure Olympic torch arrival: The deployment of extra officers was announced though 'no specified threat' to the event has been identified.' lemonde.fr/en/france/arti…

Really good points again made by Jules Boykoff about the politics of the Olympics

If you're having trouble accessing my essay about Israel's participation at the #Paris2024 Olympics—'Paris Olympics Risk Becoming Grim Monument to Hypocrisy'—please send me an email so I can try to help. irishtimes.com/sport/athletic…

Et je recommande la lecture de cet excellent article de Le Vent Se Lève pour comprendre que les JOs, ont toujours fait ça partout où ils ont été depuis les années 60 au moins :
lvsl.fr/jules-boykoff-…
/BOW Jules Boykoff

If Russian athletes must compete as 'individual neutral athletes,' there is no conceivable justification why the same standard should not be applied to Israeli athletes.

Today at UCLA, students committed to justice for Palestine established a liberated zone, organizing teach-ins, discussion circles, Passover Seder, music & much more. The student protests across the nation are historic, akin to those against the Vietnam war & S African apartheid.

Yesssssssss