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Racism is a powerful technique for sustaining injustice. We must respond to what it does, argues Gargi Bhattacharyya, if we are to dismantle it

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Premature death rates among residents of rural Missouri counties exceed the national average, records show, a result in large part due to the lack of adequate emergency medical care.

According to data compiled by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, three rural Missouri counties have premature death rates that are more than double the national average of 392 people per 100,000.

Pemiscot County in the Bootheel region of Southeast Missouri bordered by Arkansas and Tennessee, has the highest premature death rate of 951 per 100,000 people, followed by Ripley and Dunklin counties at 879 and 828. Missouri’s overall premature death rate is 462 per 100,000 people.

Premature death rates include all deaths for people under the age of 75.

Reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show higher death rates from accidents for rural residents, because emergency responders are unable to reach the injured and get them to hospitals in time.

“The percentage of potentially excess unintentional injury deaths is higher in rural areas because the ability to transport patients quickly to critical care facilities is better in urban areas than in rural areas,” the CDC report said. “As a result, a substantially higher proportion of trauma patients in rural areas than in urban areas die within 24 hours: 89.6% in rural areas vs 64.0% in urban areas.”

A longtime problem

The higher rate of premature deaths is not a new phenomenon in Missouri. Steven Woolf, director of Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Society and Health, found in 2018 that these counties “have been struggling with economic challenges for generations. High poverty rates, stagnant wages, unemployment, challenges with young people getting an adequate education are known characteristics of these places.”

A  report by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services cited by Checks & Balances Project showed that 50 rural Missouri counties lack a hospital. Those counties without hospitals have an average drive of 29.4 miles to a hospital.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

You may also want to read:

Rural Missouri counties face EMS crisis

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Premature death rates among residents of rural Missouri counties exceed the national average, records show, a result in large part due to the lack of adequate emergency medical care.

According to data compiled by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, three rural Missouri counties have premature death rates that are more than double the national average of 392 people per 100,000.

Pemiscot County in the Bootheel region of Southeast Missouri bordered by Arkansas and Tennessee, has the highest premature death rate of 951 per 100,000 people, followed by Ripley and Dunklin counties at 879 and 828. Missouri’s overall premature death rate is 462 per 100,000 people.

Premature death rates include all deaths for people under the age of 75.

Reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show higher death rates from accidents for rural residents, because emergency responders are unable to reach the injured and get them to hospitals in time.

“The percentage of potentially excess unintentional injury deaths is higher in rural areas because the ability to transport patients quickly to critical care facilities is better in urban areas than in rural areas,” the CDC report said. “As a result, a substantially higher proportion of trauma patients in rural areas than in urban areas die within 24 hours: 89.6% in rural areas vs 64.0% in urban areas.”

A longtime problem

The higher rate of premature deaths is not a new phenomenon in Missouri. Steven Woolf, director of Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Society and Health, found in 2018 that these counties “have been struggling with economic challenges for generations. High poverty rates, stagnant wages, unemployment, challenges with young people getting an adequate education are known characteristics of these places.”

A  report by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services cited by Checks & Balances Project showed that 50 rural Missouri counties lack a hospital. Those counties without hospitals have an average drive of 29.4 miles to a hospital.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

You may also want to read:

Rural Missouri counties face EMS crisis

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UltraViolet, a leading national women-led gender-justice organization responsible for numerous impactful victories against sexual predators and tech-facilitated sexual violence, issued the following statement in response to Apple updating its developer guidelines to ban AI “nudify” apps on its App Store, calling on Google to make the same changes in its Play Store immediately.

“This victory belongs to the courageous survivors of dangerous ‘nudify’ apps—especially children—and the advocates who demanded accountability. Apple’s new CEO, John Ternus, now has an opportunity to usher in a new era of leadership that puts the safety of women and children first,” said Jenna Sherman, Campaign Director at UltraViolet. “Apple's decision is an important step forward, and Google must follow suit immediately. But one policy change is not enough. Big Tech must do more to stop enabling and profiting from the creation and spread of AI-facilitated sexual abuse.”

Apple quietly made the change over the weekend amid public outcry and UltraViolet’s years-long Reclaim the Domain pressure campaign demanding that the company, alongside Google, stop the proliferation of non-consensual sexual content on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, respectively.

In January, Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok fueled a wave of nonconsensual sexual deepfake abuse on X, generating an estimated 3 million sexualized images in just 11 days, including approximately 23,000 depicting children, according to research. In response, UltraViolet delivered a sign-on letter to Apple and Google endorsed by 28 organizations calling on the companies to remove Grok, X, and all “nudify” apps from their respective marketplaces.

After the companies failed to act, UltraViolet escalated its campaign in May, bringing together more than 50 civil society organizations to send an open letter calling on state Attorneys General (AGs) to take direct legal action against Apple and Google for hosting “nudify” apps in their app stores. In June, UltraViolet and child safety organization Heat Initiative took the campaign directly to Apple's doorstep, co-hosting a demonstration at Apple Park during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), calling on new CEO John Ternus to change course from the past inaction on “nudify” apps which defined Tim Cook’s tenure.

“Just as we pressured Apple into making these changes, we’ll continue fighting until Google does the same and our other demands are met,” continued Sherman. “The two companies still refuse to 1) remove Grok and X from their app stores, since Grok is a major source of mass-produced sexual deepfakes targeting women and children, 2) add a sexual violence hotline at the top of searches for ‘deepfake porn,’ while abusive sexualized deepfakes can still be found all over Google search and tutorials on how to make deepfakes with tools available on the Google Play Store and Apple Store remain monetized, and 3) remove all known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from iCloud.”

According to a 2023 report, an estimated 98 percent of deepfake videos found online were sexually explicit, and 99 percent of those targeted in sexual deepfakes were women. UltraViolet believes the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure, including hyperscale data centers, is helping fuel this epidemic of digital abuse. That growing threat has mobilized tens of thousands of people to join UltraViolet’s Reclaim the Domain campaign. UltraViolet’s petition calling on Apple and Google to remove “nudify” apps from their app stores garnered more than 55,000 signatures.

“This win is proof that the tides are turning against these Big Tech companies, and against the ‘forced inevitability’ of AI that hurts all American people, particularly women and children. Today we celebrate this win, absolutely, but we see it as the start of a domino chain, built on the bravery of survivors, to bring down the entirety of this abusive ecosystem of sexual deepfake abuse. We are living in the greatest mass sexual abuse crisis of our time, and companies like Apple and Google have been getting rich off of it. Tech companies must for once change their tune and put people over profit—especially Google, which has no excuse to implement the same app store ban as Apple. The physical and mental well-being of every woman and child depends on it,” concluded Sherman.

Apple’s new restrictions mark the latest in a series of tech accountability victories that UltraViolet has helped secure. Recent UltraViolet wins include pressuring Google to block searches for “nudify” apps, downrank websites dedicated to platforming deepfake abuse, and to stop accepting advertising money from these apps; pushing crucial federal legislation like the DEFIANCE Act forward; and helping spur legal action from state lawmakers and AGs against Apple and Google for enabling AI-generated CSAM.

Today, Unrig the Economy and Americans for Tax Fairness released a new analysis (in English and Spanish) showing that cuts to SNAP enacted under Trump and Congressional Republicans’ tax law have disproportionately affected Latinos. Since the law passed, more than 1.5 million Latinos nationwide are estimated to have lost food assistance that helped keep food on the table. Across just seven states, roughly half of all Latinos who have lost SNAP benefits nationwide have lost access to the program since July 2025.

“The Republican Tax Law took food assistance away from more than 1.5 million Latinos to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations,” said Leor Tal, Campaign Director for Unrig Our Economy. “Families are already struggling with the high cost of groceries and gas thanks to the war in Iran and tariffs. SNAP cuts make it even harder for Latino families – who are disproportionately impacted – to put food on the table.”

“The results are in: Trump and his GOP allies in Congress cut critical nutrition assistance that helps millions of Latinos and working people across the country meet their basic needs—all to deliver historic tax giveaways to billionaires and business elites,” said Jodie Rubenstein, Executive Director of Americans for Tax Fairness. “As is so often the case, working families and communities of color bear the brunt of Trump’s economic policies. We cannot allow billionaire wealth to grow unchecked while communities go hungry.”

Read Unrig Our Economy and Americans for Tax Fairness’ new report on Latino food assistance loss in English and Spanish.

Today, the No Kings Coalition sent an open letter to Meta Platforms, Inc. Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding immediate transparency and public answers regarding the sudden suspension of its official Instagram account during the nationwide No Kings: Vote Early day of action on Saturday, October 17.

On Saturday, as millions of Americans assembled across nearly 3,000 events in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., Meta unexpectedly suspended the coalition’s Instagram account at 1:30 p.m. ET, when public engagement and livestreaming were peaking. The page was completely hidden, and administrators were locked out without justification.

While Meta later admitted in an email that it had wrongly taken the account offline and restored public visibility just after 3 p.m. ET, account administrators remained locked out of the account’s backend for over four hours, preventing real-time communications from reaching millions of Americans. Public comments from representatives of Meta citing a "technical glitch" do not sufficiently explain these actions or the significant delay in restoring access. In the open letter, the coalition demands a public response to 9 detailed questions no later than 5:00 p.m. PT on Wednesday, October 21, 2026.

The questions demand transparency regarding specific policy violations, enforcement logs, potential communications between Meta and the Trump administration, internal content moderation directives, hashtag throttling, automated AI moderation protocols, emergency redress human review guarantees, and high-profile account "whitelist" practices.

"This raises serious questions among the public about why these actions were taken and the implications during the election season. Critical voter information or civic participation should not be blocked, throttled, or otherwise interfered with if Meta aspires to be a trusted actor in our democracy," the coalition writes in the letter. "The public deserves answers."

The full text of the open letter sent to Meta leadership is included below and is available online at nokings.org/metacensorship. Additionally, the No Kings Coalition is having a mass virtual call on Wednesday, October 21 at 8 p.m. ET to share updates and discuss what’s next as the coalition transitions into nonpartisan election defense.

To speak with a representative of the No Kings Coalition, email media@nokings.org.

FULL TEXT OF OPEN LETTER TO META PLATFORMS, INC.

October 19, 2026

Mark Zuckerberg
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Meta Platforms, Inc.
Attn: Diana Powell McCormick, Joel Kaplan, Adam Mosseri
1 Meta Way

Menlo Park, CA 94025

Dear Mark Zuckerberg:

The No Kings Coalition writes in alarm at actions taken by Meta that resulted in removal and revocation of account administrator access to the coalition’s Instagram account during the largest single-day early vote activation in American history.

On Saturday, October 17, millions of Americans came together for No Kings: Vote Early. At the height of our national day of action around 1:30pm ET, Meta unexpectedly suspended the No Kings Coalition’s Instagram account. The page was completely hidden, and administrators were locked out for hours without any justification. Meta did not respond to our team for approximately 90 minutes.

At 3:03pm ET, only after intense public backlash, Meta restored the account to viewable status. At this time, Meta admitted in a response email that they had wrongly taken the account offline. However, administrators were still unable to access the account for more than four hours until 5:41pm ET.

Public comments from representatives of Meta do not sufficiently explain these actions or the significant delay in remedying the so-called “technical glitch.” This raises serious questions among the public about why these actions were taken and the implications during the election season. Critical voter information or civic participation should not be blocked, throttled, or otherwise interfered with if Meta aspires to be a trusted actor in our democracy.

The public deserves answers. As such, the No Kings Coalition demands public response to the following questions. Americans are voting, and the election is fast approaching. Time is of the essence. Responses to these questions should be shared publicly no later than 5:00pm Pacific Time on Wednesday, October 21st.

1. What specific actions from the No Kings Coalition account were alleged to have violated Meta’s policies, and which policies were implicated? Will Meta release the enforcement logs related to this incident?
2. What, if any, communication has Meta or its representatives had with the Trump administration about No Kings and other pro-democracy protests? Who were you in contact with, and what topics were discussed?
   1. Did Meta have any communications with the Trump administration related to the October 17th No Kings day of action, either before, during, or after the 17th?
   2. Did any government, political party, outside organization, or advertiser contact Meta about the account or the No Kings events in the 30 days prior to removal? If so, who and what was requested?
   3. Did Meta have any communications with the Trump administration about prior actions from No Kings or other pro-democracy protests?
3. Has Meta had any communications with the Trump administration about voter education and mobilization or anything else related to the 2026 midterm elections?
4. Does Meta have any internal directives or policies for teams managing account access or content moderation related to demonstrations of free speech, pro-democracy protests, or content critical of President Trump or the federal government?
5. Why did #NoKings stop populating content on Instagram’s desktop site for a portion of the afternoon on October 17 while the official No Kings account was down? Was No Kings content, including content from other accounts, subject to any restriction, suppression, reduced distribution, or other limitation on its visibility or reach during any part of October 17?
6. A Meta representative cited “automated systems” as part of the explanation for how this happened. To what extent are AI agents involved in building, monitoring, or administering these automated systems?
7. Will Meta guarantee human review of all automated midterm-related content moderation actions within one hour of initial action between now and when the winners of the election are seated? What emergency redress options will you put in place to ensure voter access efforts that experience similar account disruptions can reach a human being to review their account status?
8. Meta has published information on Meta’s use of various whitelist protocols that prevent automated systems from banning or removing content from certain high profile accounts. How do those systems treat President Trump and his allies? How do those systems treat No Kings or other civil society efforts to encourage voter participation?
9. Will Meta guarantee that its policies and algorithms will not put a thumb on the scale for or against any candidates or parties during the 2026 midterm elections?

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your timely public response.

Sincerely,

The No Kings Coalition

No Kings events are nonpartisan and are designed to increase participation from all eligible voters. A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action and no civil disobedience. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events. Weapons of any kind, including those legally permitted, should not be brought to events.

Botany, welfare, friendships, work and housing. David Matthews picks six of the best new books for leftists

The post Book previews: autumn 2026 appeared first on Red Pepper.

Rural Missouri counties are part of an emergency medical services (EMS) crisis, as decreasing populations and tax bases, combined with the closing of multiple hospitals, have caused treatment times to rise to almost double those in urban areas.

Slightly more than 24 percent of Missourians live in non-metro areas, according to a report from the state Office of Rural Health. They have only one rural emergency hospital.

Fifty rural Missouri counties lack a hospital, according to a report by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Those counties without hospitals have an average drive of 29.4 miles to a hospital.

“Families are traveling hours for emergency care, children are growing up in counties with some of the nation’s highest poverty rates, and entire communities face the collapse of the very systems meant to sustain them,” said a recent report from the Missouri Rural Health Association.

The 2023 report by the state Department of Health and Senior Services lays out some stark realities about the condition of rural health care in Missouri:

The population in Missouri’s 99 rural counties declined by 1 percent since the last census, while the population of nonrural counties rose by 1.9 percent. Declining populations mean lower tax revenues and people available for EMS training.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

 

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Well that was fun. In last week's welcome bit of comic relief, we got the vapid rise and rapid fall - despite requisite blonde hair, faux smile and passing resemblance to Ivanka - of "manifestly unqualified" Barbie News Reader and fake Chinese lawyer Katie Zacharia after a brutal debut. So much for MAGA meritocracy. SAD! Zacharia set a new speed record - half a Mooch - in a job akin to Spinal Tap drummer. But the question remains: When will the incompetent male dolts get fired?

While by far not the most substantive Trump blunder, it was one of the most cringeworthy, exposing (again) the profound ineptitude of his shambolic rule just before voters go to the polls to render judgment on it. In less than a week, Zacharia managed to get plucked from right-wing obscurity, be "shoehorned" into a job far beyond her skillset, humiliate herself before millions, go on Fox and stammeringly fail to redeem herself, and get fired by a capricious, perennial loser who got famous fake-firing people on TV and now daily exposes his own clownish unfitness for his job. One astute observer: "I'm starting to think this Donald guy might not have any idea what he's doing."

Born Kate Sharon Black in 1984, Zacharia grew up in California in the "liberal cesspool” of Cambria; she was the conservative “black sheep” of her family "thanks to the great, late Rush Limbaugh, who raised me as a kid on the radio." Describing a clash with woke patrons of her "cardio kickboxing gym," she said the owner once asked her not to wear her "Trump 2024" hat but "I would never take my Trump hat off to appease the left." A Pizzagate, Qanon and Stop the Steal buff, she was a "huge fan of ICE and Border Patrol" who briefly worked for Kristi Noem and a commentator for right-wing TV before being spotted by Trump, maybe because she scheduled her gigs when she thought he'd be watching. Totally normal.

Officials looking to replace Karoline Leavitt had reportedly narrowed down the list of candidates "only to find that (they'd) said something negative about (Trump)," which of course wouldn't do for the fragile toddler. Thus did uber-obsequious, ringlet-bottle-blonde "lizard person" Zacharia take to the podium, blare "Good morning!!" in a sing-songy screech, and stumble through a smiley, halting, inflection-challenged briefing about Trump's "historic one-day war," "attendance at record highs as enthusiastic hardworking Americans are lining up and packing arenas," a "booming economy....and a, um, he, great relationship...with Venezuela...um, and...my president, excuse me, my husband, that's a good one..." Not.

After the one question on Ukraine, and the famous, “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” it was over. 14 minutes, or forever in bimbo time. It got worse. The oft-repeated claims of being a lawyer when she’d failed the bar - weirdly, thanks Hannity - and of working in China on “international transaction law” when she was basically a paid intern. The verdict: "A train wreck," "a joke hire," "talk about a public execution," "between the 3rd-grade level reading and the fake attorney in China thing, brutal." Anti-DEI,.scandal-plagued Rick Santorum's glowing review: She was "not even close to the worst." Trump's lazy excuse: "I told her, 'If I were you, I'd reconsider.'" Fox: She's "transitioning" out of the job she held for 14 minutes.

It was a made-for-the-Internet spectacle. The White House declared, "She’ll be remembered as one of the all-time greats." America proclaimed, "She's gonna be a punchline for a very long time." Democratic strategist Mike Nellis clarified, "She wasn't fired because she lied,” a Trump requisite, but because "she was a bad liar." Another requisite: Michael Steele mused no more "blonde white female pronouncing his noise in a way that makes him feel good.” Some selfishly mourned the loss: "Please let her last long enough to hold a second briefing - I need the joy." Some empathized with SNL writers stuck with Friday night rewrites. Some were shocked: "I can't believe her husband, I mean president, fired her."

Though no press secretary really matters because Trump daily lies, veers, makes things up, some speculated on the next one: Scott Jennings, Katie Miller, Melissa McCarthy doing Sean Spicer. The Borowitz Report announced it's George Santos, who was "thrilled...I will bring to this job my experience not only as a lawyer but as a doctor and astronaut.” Also, he was cutting short his reunion tour "with his fellow Beatles." Some noted Zacharia "was press secretary longer than she was a lawyer." Others asserted they'd had blueberries, bananas, takeout and lettuce in their fridge longer than she had her job. Also that the U.K's Liz Truss lasted longer, as did the head of lettuce that often competed with her.

Some mulled Zacharia's future: "Next: memoir and book tour," "Now she can go back to studying for the bar, or at least its cocktail menu," "She is leaving 'to spend more time with my children, who will teach me how to read.'" A guy met her years ago on a cruise ship: She was telling a friend she'd partied the night before and slept in. They told her she'd missed them crossing the equator that morning. She said, "Oh, what did it look like?" Some waxed lyrical: "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." Some lamented inflation: "I remember when you could get a few months of work out of a press secretary. Now they're like those new batteries - they look like they'll last but whoosh and they're gone."

In honor of her historic reign, Wikipedia’s “List Of Humorous Units Of Measurement” was updated to include the “Zacharia,” a “fractional unit of a Scaramucci,” the previous record for Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days as press secretary in Trump's first term. The change prompted heated debate, pained mathematical equations, admiration: "Nobody thought anything could go faster than the speed of Mooch, but here we are." There were questions - Are Mooches a metric system? Would that be 45 centi-Mooches? - and answers: "They convert at a 5/11 ratio." Talk turned existential: "A Scaramucci was a measure of time. A Zacharia is more ethereal, a measure of being, a disconnect between one’s story and one's purpose...Beautiful really."

And there was anger Zacharia got fired but Trump's still here, that the media and GOP have let him "get away with LYING ABOUT EVERY GODDAMNED THING...from 2015 SPOUTING THAT OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE SHIT AND EVERY OTHER FUCKING LIE HE’S TOLD SINCE." And, in the last few months, that half of eight female officials have resigned or been fired, all replaced by men. That consistently inept, unhinged, corrupt, sick idiots like Hegseth, Patel, Lutnick, Goebbels, Vance etc lie, cheat, rave, royally screw up yet keep their jobs. What the fuck. Meanwhile Zacharia, still sketchy, posts altered photos from the Oval Office and declares the guy who threw her under the bus "kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic and hard-working...No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to." Damn, we hope not.

Helpful Press Secretary conversion table.Image from Bluesky

New FEC filings show the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has become the dominant funder of the Senate Leadership Fund, the leading Republican Senate super PAC. Musk was responsible for 58% of the fund’s third-quarter fundraising, and his latest contributions bring his total giving to the Republican group to $168 million. His contributions to a single party super PAC appear poised to exceed the previous record by approximately $100 million.

In response, Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert said:

“Elon Musk is pouring unprecedented sums of money into Republican super PACs, giving him extraordinary financial leverage over the party’s political future, in an attempt to sway the midterm results with his net worth. The current state of our campaign finance system allows one billionaire to supply the overwhelming share of a major party’s political funding. This is undemocratic and flat-out wrong. America should be a nation where the voices of regular people are heard just as loudly as the ultrawealthy. And where the billionaire class is prevented from consolidating political power.”

Musk also has his own pet super PAC, which he has given $126 million according to recent analysis by Public Citizen. In 2026, Musk has contributed a total of $366 million to super PACs and other political groups in an effort to help Republicans win in November.

Katrina Navickas’ clear and persuasive history invites readers to reflect critically on space, place and the commons, writes Rhian E Jones

The post Contested Commons – review appeared first on Red Pepper.

Picture a bride walking down the aisle in ancient Rome, holding a bunch of garlic and dill. Not exactly the Pinterest-ready scene we expect today. Yet that pungent bundle is the great-great-grandparent of the bouquet you see at nearly every American wedding in 2026. The story of how we got from kitchen herbs to garden roses is really a story about fear, hope, status and changing taste.

Why brides first carried herbs, not flowers

In ancient Greece and Rome, a wedding was considered a risky moment. People believed evil spirits were drawn to happy couples, and a bride was thought especially vulnerable. So she carried protection. Garlic and strong-smelling herbs such as dill, sage and chives were bundled together to keep malicious forces away and, ideally, to bring fertility and good fortune.

There was a practical side too. Hygiene in the ancient world was what it was, and aromatic plants helped mask unpleasant smells. I find it oddly touching that the first bridal “bouquet” was part talisman, part air freshener.

Herbs also carried meaning:

• Rosemary stood for remembrance and fidelity.
• Thyme signified courage.
• Ivy, popular in Greece, symbolized an unbreakable bond.
• Myrtle, sacred to Aphrodite and Venus, represented love and marriage.

Brides often wore herbal wreaths on their heads as well, and those crowns slowly shaped the idea that a bride should be wrapped in plants.

Medieval posies, orange blossoms and the origin of the toss

By the Middle Ages, herbs were still central, but sweet-smelling flowers began to join them. Orange blossoms arrived in Europe through trade with the Middle East and quickly became a symbol of purity and fertility. They had a long run as the “official” bridal flower.

The bouquet toss has a less romantic origin. In 14th-century England, guests reportedly believed a piece of the bride’s clothing brought good luck, and some got so eager that they tore at her dress. To escape, brides began throwing their bouquets into the crowd instead. The flowers became a decoy, and the custom stuck. Whoever caught them was said to be next in line to marry.

The Victorian era: when flowers learned to talk

The 19th century changed everything. Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840 wearing a wreath of orange blossoms, and her very public wedding turned floral details into fashion news. A sprig of myrtle from a nosegay given to Victoria in the 1840s was planted at Osborne House, and cuttings from that plant have appeared in royal bridal bouquets ever since.

This was also the golden age of floriography, the “language of flowers.” Small, tightly packed bouquets known as nosegays or tussie-mussies were assembled so that each bloom sent a message. A red rose meant passion, ivy meant fidelity, and lily of the valley meant a return to happiness. A bride’s bouquet could read like a coded love letter, and guests who knew the vocabulary could read it.

Roses gained ground in this period, too. Breeders were producing new hybrids, including the first hybrid tea, ‘La France’, introduced in 1867. Roses became more reliable, more varied and easier to grow, which paved the way for their dominance in the next century.

The twentieth century: from shower bouquets to cascades

Bouquet styles started to follow the decades almost like hemlines did.

• 1920s–30s: Long, trailing “shower” bouquets and arm sheaves of calla lilies suited the sleek lines of Art Deco gowns.
• 1950s: Smaller and more formal. Grace Kelly’s 1956 bouquet, a lily of the valley arrangement carried with a prayer book, was widely admired and copied.
• 1960s–70s: Daisies, baby’s breath and loose wildflowers reflected a more relaxed, countercultural mood.
• 1980s: Drama returned. Princess Diana’s 1981 cascade of gardenias, roses, orchids and myrtle set the tone for oversized, sculptural bouquets.
• 1990s–2000s: Tight, round, hand-tied bundles, often all roses or peonies, became the American default.

Cut-flower logistics mattered here, too. Refrigerated shipping and global flower farming meant roses were available year-round at a fair price. That is a big reason the rose became the “classic” choice. It was not always the oldest tradition, just the most dependable one.

What bouquets look like in 2026

The pendulum has swung back toward the garden. Many couples now favor loose, asymmetrical arrangements with seasonal stems, fragrant herbs and trailing greenery. If that sounds a bit like ancient Greece, it is. Rosemary, mint, eucalyptus and thyme are popping up in bouquets again, now for texture and scent rather than demon-repelling.

Several trends stand out:

• Heirloom garden roses with ruffled petals and real fragrance, rather than tight, scentless supermarket blooms.
• Locally grown flowers from regional farms, which cut transport and fit the season.
• Dried and preserved elements, which help the bouquet last as a keepsake.
• Personal symbolism, such as a sprig from a grandmother’s garden or a flower tied to a hometown.

One thing I have noticed is that couples increasingly ask what a flower means before they ask what it costs. The Victorians would approve.

What the long history tells us

The wedding bouquet has always reflected what people feared, valued and could get their hands on. Garlic guarded the bride, orange blossoms promised fertility, myrtle spoke of love, and the rose rose to fame when growers and shipping networks made it possible. Underneath all of it is the same instinct: to hold something living at a moment that matters.

If you are planning a wedding, or just curious, try tracing the meaning of a single flower, such as rosemary, ivy or the humble rose. Each one has a surprisingly rich backstory, and choosing a bouquet with that story in mind can make it feel far more personal than any trend.

A Fox News poll has revealed that corruption is a leading issue for voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, with a whopping 88 percent saying they are concerned about corruption, including 60 percent who say they are “extremely concerned” about it.

In response, Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert issued the following statement:

“The public is furious about the corruption they see from the government. Even Fox News polling says as much. If we see a shift in power in the next Congress, the American people will expect the new holders of the gavels to deliver oversight and accountability in a strategic and disciplined way that zeroes in on the real harms that the current regime, in cahoots with corporate power, have carried out at the expense of everyday Americans.”

The devastation goes on apace at the teeny toxic hands of the clowns and hacks in power (maybe not much longer?). Topping the abuses: An assault by Homeland Security (sic) thugs on the home of a duly elected (albeit female, brown, Muslim) member of Congress for imaginary crimes as a child. Also: racist rallies, fake rumors, defying of court orders, calamitous fails on all sides. Their witless leader: "If Republicans get in power, you're going to (have) a depression. These people are incompetent."

In 2022, Cory Doctorow helpfully wrote Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It. At the time, it was an analysis of how the Internet went wrong, a sort of "Big Tech disassembly manual" aimed at curbing powerful people from making transactional, short-term, self-serving policy choices ultimately bad for everyone but themselves. Alas, since the return of Trump 2, many argue the same dismal process of enshittification has oozed and expanded outwards to become "the organizing principle of US statecraft" itself, rendering pretty much everything in the public sphere....shitty.

Trump and his cabal of low-lifes daily ensure we get ample evidence of that dark reality. Their latest target: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the first Somali-American lawmaker, one of the first two Muslim women in Congress, the most visible refugee in American politics and Trump's worst nightmare who has long endured the most venomous of his abuses, which is going some. After four childhood years spent in a Kenya refugee camp, she came to the U.S. at 12, was reportedly 17 when her late father filed their immigration paperwork, was sworn into Congress at 36, and will now likely see easy re-election in the mid-terms.

For those crimes, she's been relentlessly bullied, threatened and assailed by a racist buffoon who has sneered she's "garbage," "totally crooked" and a "terrible person" who married her brother, came from "a non-country - all they have is crime and squalor," and should be sent back there, a notion his audience of bigots and cretins embraced this weekend at another Nazi rally where they mindlessly screamed, "Deport!" This, after Trump intoned "they are looking at her very carefully" after a judge signed a piece of paper allowing DHS goons to raid her home in the dubious name of unclear charges of vague unproven offenses.

The raid, which defies longtime DOJ policy banning major actions just before an election - "Another hard norm out the window" - was foreshadowed by racist story creator J.D. burbling it "seems like something's fishy there“ as he and Goebbels worked to decide, "How do you go after her (to) get some justice for the American people?” What a crock. A steely Omar responded to their clumsy "fascism in the extreme" by calling it "just the latest escalation" in ten years of Trump's "baseless lies and smear campaigns." “I will not be silenced,” she concluded, which reportedly "translates from Congressional-speak as 'Fuck You.'"

Trump, meanwhile, lumbers on, learning nothing. At a rally in Ohio that drew a paltry few thousand - with empty seats hidden by tarps and flags - he fittingly marked Columbus Day with more racist crap. He celebrated Haitians losing their legal status, insisted "I was right" about Springfield residents eating pets, called Somalis in Minnesota "low-IQ people," attacked Omar, from "the worst country," for claiming constitutional rights. (More "Deport!" chants. Jesus.) He also admired Jon Husted's ass - "I don't do this with men very often" - and urged on fans beating up a protester he called "fat," "paid," and "scum." (Pot/kettle.)

And he still keeps losing in court. Hungry to turn a public, affordable D.C. golf course where he dumped East Wing debris into a private fat cat resort, he tried to pull a fast one - filing a Friday 5 p.m. request, then razing 430 trees the next morning - on a judge who furiously blasted the “inexcusable," "preposterous" action, ripped him a new one - "In what universe did anyone in your office think this was acceptable?" - slapped him with a restraining order, and warned if they violated the order "by two seconds" they'd face contempt charges. "We did our best,” whined regime lawyers. "No," she snapped. "You did your absolute worst.”

So it goes. Another judge again blocked - past Election Day - the ludicrous, $20-million, taxpayer-funded, "educational and unapologetically patriotic" propaganda ads she banned once; in another end run, regime weasels moved them to YouTube. One ad portrays the desperate fragile snowflake as a lion who has to "show the jackals who he is." Another declares, "God made Trump...somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild...who goes into the den of vipers, cares for the flock (and) won't ever forsake them," especially if they accept his $5,000 bribe.

Implausibly, his lackeys are just as lame and awful. Despite facing a scarcity of agents and funds, FBI head (sic) Kash Patel has been boasting of his supposed crackdown on violent crime, claiming the arrest of over 54,000 violent criminals, or 90% more than in the Biden era. Less than shockingly, his numbers turn out to be wildly inflated by including arrests by state and local police and other federal agencies where an FBI agent may have happened to be present. In fact, actual numbers show FBI arrests are down at least 15% from previous years, though at least they're busy harassing Trump's personal enemies.

There's more macho bullshit from aspiring warrior Pete Kegsbreath, fresh from his Arsenal of Freedom Tour (really). Speaking at an annual Army meeting on a panel of warmongers eager to expand the use of unmanned drones to make death-dealing even easier, Pete was repeatedly interrupted by protesters calling him a "coward" and "Nazi.” "The world fucking hates you. You're a fucking war criminal," yelled one. "We’ll see you at the goddamn Hague." Pete grew increasingly irritated; maybe he'd read reports that, despite their brave boat strikes, record supplies of cocaine still arrive here, "cheaper and purer than they've been in decades."

Other MAGA flops abound. When James Talarico took a week off the campaign with the flu, conspiracy crackpots decided it was a cover for a mental health crisis. Spencer Platt's crude take: “This isn’t a case of the ‘flu’, it's 'one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.” The "silly season" claim fell apart so fast even right-wingers were embarrassed. "This is such shit work, bro," wrote one, wondering if Talarico would sue. There was also the cringey fall of Kimberley 'The best is yet to come!' Guilfoyle, and Trump's brazen distancing - "She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago” - despite the surfacing of damning partying video on Jan. 6.

And the rise of new Press Barbie Katie Zacharia, former Pizzagate and QAnon fan, whose debut - so bad "a Zacharia may replace a Scaramucci as a time measurement" - was summed up by The Atlantic : "Hi, I'm Your New Press Secretary, and It's My First Time Reading Words Out Loud...I swear I have seen a sentence before, and I know where one stops and. Starts. And whether? To speak. With a rising inflection?" Now there are reports the self-described lawyer isn't one; a complaint has been filed with the California Bar for “the Unauthorized Practice of Law," and one account says she took the bar but failed it.

Fail fail fail: Thy name is MAGA. Perhaps we should be grateful; unimaginably, the current clusterfuck could be worse with competence. Take the Defending Main Street Super PAC, "the most effective independent expenditure organization for the GOP," which just spent tens of thousands of dollars to run a million 30-second ads arguing, “Maine can’t afford Troy Jackson and all his taxes" in the wrong Portland - Oregon, not Maine, over 3,000 miles off-base. One Maine operative: "At least now Portland, Oregon, can enjoy some of the crap we’ve been seeing every day.” MAGA's mantra: Make it shitty. Ours: Make it stop.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Today’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report shows prices rose 0.6% in September and are up 3.7% over the past year, the fastest pace since May. Gasoline prices jumped 9.1% in September alone, accounting for over half of the monthly increase in overall prices, and are up 34% from a year ago. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, rose 0.33% in September, the largest monthly increase since April.

Americans are increasingly frustrated with Trump's failure to bring down high prices. Consumers' views of current economic conditions are at an all-time low, and 82% of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the cost of living. Instead of working to rein in inflation, Trump is trying to pull a fast one on voters, spewing empty promises to bring prices down and send Americans a $5,000 “Trump dividend” if Republicans hold Congress, despite having never delivered on the DOGE and tariff checks he promised last year.

Today's inflation report is the last before the Federal Reserve's October 28 interest rate decision. The Fed raised interest rates last month for the first time in three years because of inflation concerns, and most officials anticipate another increase by the end of the year. In its latest meeting minutes, the Fed pointed to Trump's tariffs and higher energy costs, as well as the president’s never-ending war with Iran, as drivers of persistent inflation. Trump’s war and tariffs are raising the prices of nearly everything families buy, and now his actions are raising borrowing costs for families, too.

Groundwork’s Senior Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, and Research Alex Jacquez, released the following statement:

“It’s no wonder Americans have lost faith in Trump’s economy. The president has repeatedly made promises he can’t keep, and despite the band-aid attempts from the White House, there is a gaping hole in our economy just weeks from the midterms. Between the president’s war in Iran and reckless tariffs, his economy is on life support.”

The following statement was issued by Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, regarding the announcement that there will be a 3.6% cost-of-living (COLA) benefit increase for millions of Social Security beneficiaries next year:

“Millions of Americans who rely on Social Security welcome any increase in their monthly benefits, but even this larger-than-normal cost-of-living increase is just not enough to keep up with the cost of food, gas, utilities, and prescription drugs.

“The average retired worker will see about $74 more per month next year but a good chunk of that will be wiped out by the higher Medicare Part B premium, which is projected to rise to $209.50 a month in January.

“Strengthening and expanding Social Security must be a national priority. If billionaires and the wealthiest 1 percent pay their fair share, we can boost benefits for everyone, implement a COLA that reflects the cost of things older Americans spend money on, and guarantee the program’s solvency for future generations. It’s time for clear and decisive action.

“In just three weeks, older Americans will have an opportunity to elect members of Congress who will make strengthening Social Security a priority. The future of our earned benefits is on the ballot.”

The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, on Social Security’s 2027 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which will be 3.6 percent:

“Every year, Social Security’s benefits are automatically adjusted to account for inflation. This is an essential feature of the system, which prevents benefits from eroding over time.

Next year’s COLA can’t come soon enough for many Social Security beneficiaries. The Trump administration's war of choice with Iran and tariff chaos have driven gasoline prices up nearly 40 percent, and caused grocery costs to skyrocket.

The COLA adjustment will help. But it doesn’t fully account for the costs that Social Security beneficiaries face. That’s because the measure used to calculate it, the CPI-W, is designed to reflect the costs of working people — not retirees, who spend a higher percentage of their income on healthcare, housing, and other bare necessities.

Democrats in both the House and Senate have plans to improve the COLA, by switching to a more accurate measure, the CPI-E. Meanwhile, Republicans complain that the current COLA measure is too generous.

Many Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, have endorsed plans to use a stingier measure, the chained CPI. That’s a cut to the American people’s hard-earned benefits.

Over time, switching to the chained CPI, as the Republicans have proposed, would shrink yearly benefits by hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Switching to the CPI-E, as the Democrats propose, would increase benefits. This would particularly impact women and Hispanics, who have longer average life expectancies.

In 2032, within the six-year terms of U.S. Senators elected this November, Social Security is projected to face a funding shortfall. The vast majority of Republicans refuse to support a single penny in revenue increases, even from the ultra-wealthy, to address the shortfall. That leaves benefit cuts, including less generous COLAs, as their only option.

The bottom line: Social Security’s future is on the ballot this November, and that includes the size of annual COLA adjustments.”

The anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the three-year, U.S-funded Gazan genocide it ignited marks the birth of a dark new world where "the unthinkable has become banal," where many thousands of damaged Palestinian children - homeless, toy-less, traumatized, unschooled, with mournful questions about a lost world - have been given only "tents, hunger, and rubble as answers." Zohran Mamdani on the arduous, unfulfilled task before us: "There must be room to mourn every single life."

Precisely one year into what over 100 human rights organizations around the world call "a ceasefire in name only," Gaza remains "Ground Zero" in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. In the last three years, Israeli strikes have killed at least 74,254 people, including over 21,500 children, and wounded 175,000 more, killing or wounding more than 1 in 10 of Gaza's pre-war population; health officials estimate tens of thousands more dead remain buried beneath Gaza's 61 million tons of rubble. Since the start of the so-called ceasefire on Oct.10 of last year, at least 1,470 more Palestinians have been killed, including nearly one child a day. No hospital is fully functional, over 1.4 million Palestinians face crisis-level hunger and most Gazan families remain trapped in a devastating cycle of loss, grief, deprivation and uncertainty.

Reports seeping out from a still-mostly-blockaded Gaza describe "entire worlds wiped out" - extended families, neighborhoods, over 80% of all buildings, resulting in nearly 1.9 million Palestinians displaced. Gaza's missing, or last seen detained, handcuffed, tortured, naked, haunt those who survive: "We don't know whether to mourn them or wait for them." During occasional prisoner swaps, Israel hands over images or remains of decomposing bodies of detainees, many handcuffed, blindfolded, missing limbs, clearly tortured. Parents scroll or search through them, all that's left of a long-missing son: "How did I become a mother who hopes to find her child among mutilated corpses? My dream was to hug him. Now I pray simply to bury him."

Others relive brutality they withstood: fires, bombings, multiple evacuations, sights, smells, sounds of phosphorous bombs, drones, tanks; the terror of running to an outhouse fast enough not to "be sniped," as bombs fall the uneasy sleep close enough to outside walls that, if buildings fall, neighbors can dig them out or at least bury them, the first up-close sight of Israeli soldiers swathed in armor, looking "invincible." The orders to strip to underwear, blindfolded, tightly handcuffed behind backs; kneeling on ground of broken glass and rubble; insults, beatings, cold relieved only when their own warm welcome blood from punches runs over them. Trying to pray or sleep, hallucinating "between life and death," when blankets, speaking, changing position is forbidden: "Everything was forbidden except breathing and swift death."

Palestinian detaineePhoto by Activestills

And always there are the children, Gaza's "lost generation," roughly 700,000 students left behind by three years of war and deliberate “scholasticide" that have destroyed 95% of their schools, turned the rest into shelters for the displaced, killed over 20,000 students and 1,000 teachers, seen books burned for fuel for warmth or cooking. At the start of a new school year, the UN and its partners have set up over 500 tent sites - no desks, chairs, books, water, ovens in summer, freezing in winter - to serve up to 100,000 hungry, shell-shocked students struggling to focus in an attempted return to a "normal life" they can't imagine, who've grown up falling asleep to the sound of bombs, "their entire existence one of life amid rubble, tents, stones and sand," writes Tareq Hajjaj of kids often too young to remember what a home or school was.

Hajjaj fled for Cairo in 2024 so his only child wouldn't "grow up believing the whole world looked like Gaza." He left behind 15 nieces and nephews whose "expectations for ordinary life" he's seen shrink; on one video call, a six-year-old nephew saw him sitting on a sofa and asked how he fit it in his tent, and they dream only of a bigger, dryer tent. In the occupied West Bank, residents likewise endure new Israeli gates that turn villages into "an effective cage," Bedouin families are expelled, settlers steal land, livestock, homes, olive groves harvested by Palestinian generations past. This is not a Palestinian "superhuman capacity" for resilience, Hajjaj argues, but "the ordinary human behavior of people who have no other choice, who are left alone to their fate." To cope, they dismiss the hardship with “aadi,” Arabic for normal -"it is what it is" - but "there is nothing normal about it."

Many Gazans are still surviving on a fraction of the food aid they need.Getty Image

In a deeply complicit America that contributed over $30 billion to the enduring carnage, the truth of what our blood money has wrought slowly seeps out. Last month, the New York Film Festival premiered NAZA, the Guardian-produced documentary by two Israeli filmmakers that offers a grim "Window Into Systems of Mass Killings" in a Gaza where rabid Zionists argued there are "no innocent people." NAZA, the Hebrew acronym for civilian deaths as high as 500 for one legit target, presents damning testimony from 24 Israeli soldiers, faces obscured from Israeli retribution, who veer from naming their genocidal acts to rationalizing them through performative nods toward their guilt - a longtime form of Israeli sort-of-moral-reckoning with state violence known as "shooting and crying" that critics dub "addiction to the mediated obscene." The film will stream for free in November on The Guardian website.

This week, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani proffered a more heartfelt, equitable reckoning with what remains "a moral tear in the universe" by attending a peace vigil and press conference to commemorate the grim anniversary. As expected, he caught flak from both sides when he called out both Hamas' “horrific war crimes” - he's a Muslim "traitor" - and Israel's “devastating, ongoing genocide” - he's an "anti-Semite." Calmly, he noted, he "signed up for this," and will continue to insist on it, citing the need to equally mourn and extend human rights to the over 1,100 Israelis killed and 74,000 Palestinians subsequently killed. "This is part of what it means to believe in a sense of humanity, " he said. "We need not choose between which death we will mourn and which we will ignore, and we must reckon with the fact that all of it is to be opposed.”

A ceasefire in name only: The mother of 8-year-old Amal al-Mughayir mourns her death in an Israeli strike on Khan Younis last month.Photo by Doaa Albaz

Further glad proof of that reckoning was the awarding of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to “Navi” Pillay, 85, South African jurist, former U.N. human rights chief and member of the ICC who has led decades-long fights seeking accountability for apartheid, wartime rape and most recently the Gaza genocide. The Nobel committee cited Pillay's “exceptional courage”; noting her last report naming Gaza a genocide, she responded, "Why would you need courage to speak the truth?" Fittingly, Pillay learned of the award while at Germany's Nuremberg Forum, where Nazis went on trial in 1945: "I was sitting here minding my own business, listening to the panel present their research, because you’re always learning.” When colleagues applauded her, Pillay won the Internet by slyly adding, "Thank you so much. If you clap a little more, I may share this prize with President Trump."

Last year, Pillay was also awarded the Sydney Peace Prize. She dedicated it to “all the survivors of international crimes” and to “defenders of international justice (who) ensure that impunity will not be allowed to reign.” Joining her righteous fight is Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza and winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Recently, per Zeteo, Toha wrote A Letter of Sympathy to the President of the United States after he saw posts online mocking Trump when he was seen wincing at the “deafening sound" of a military flyover for his autocrat bestie Chinese President Xi. "I didn’t like the tone of many of those posts,” Toha wrote. "I don't blame you for such a reaction/ I have reacted like this, and worse, hundred of times..."

To wit:
"My parents, wife, kids, and siblings have too.
So all of us now
know how
that sound feels.

In 2008, I was 16
on the roof of our house in Beit Lahia,
standing with my father, watching his pigeons in their coop,
when an Israeli, U.S.-made F-16
flew low, like a shaving machine,
before razing a neighborhood.

I panicked at its piercing shriek,

but also at the sight of the missiles

mounted beneath its wings.

But Mr. President, all of us, except you, know
the screech of a missile
or the blast of an explosion.
Do you know what’s louder than the screech and the blast?

The voice of a mother in Jabalia Camp,
begging me on October 31, 2023,
to search for the bodies of her husband and children
under the rubble
not just of her house,
but of the entire neighborhood.

The desperate pleas of 5-year-old Hind Rajab
from her uncle’s car in January 2024,
and the 335 bullets fired at her
before, during, and after the call.

The trickle of tears on the cheek of a father
who returned with no bread for his kids in a tent
in Khan Younis, and the screams of an infant
whose mother’s breast had dried up.

The heartbeat of 18-year-old Ahed
as her uncle, Dr. Hani Bseiso,
amputated her leg on a kitchen table,

without anesthesia.

It was dark!

The grinding footsteps of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyya
as he walked toward the tank in his white coat.

I can hear the sound of his disappearance.

And I can still hear and hear more!

But do you know what will be much louder than all?

The sound of the gavel
in the court of justice."

Liz Khan reports on the global network of women organising against war and militarism since 1988, with feminist analyses at their core

The post Women in Black: peace and justice across borders appeared first on Red Pepper.

Radical Routes members Wren Draper and Caz Montgomery chart 40 years of work building alternatives to neoliberal capitalism

The post Radical Routes: Britain’s quiet co-operative revolution appeared first on Red Pepper.