The Spring 2022 edition of The Virginia Defender was published on April 21st, 2022. Click here for the full PDF.
Inside this issue:
The environment, Virginia & the Mighty James
2022: celebrating 20 years of struggle!
Defenders to celebrate 20th anniversary
Community News
Community Profile: The Supreme Flea Market
New exhibit honors children killed in the Holocaust
An interview with Princess Blanding
April 3: Richmond Liberation Day!
Northern Virginia coalition fights to protect endangered cemeteries
Virginia tribe regains sacred ground
Virginia Museum of History & Culture plans grand reopening May 14-15
Our Working Lives
Interview with a Starbucks union worker
Virginia Beach workers organize for better pay
Cops, Courts & Prisons
Black teacher, falsely suspected of shoplifting, charged with felony assault on arresting cop
Mother files suit on behalf of son killed by police
Defenders submit testimony on police accountability
Defender editor speaks at Cold Springs event
Reclaiming our sacred ground
How committed is Richmond to the Heritage Campus?
In Our Opinion
The cruelty of ‘upgrading’ public housing
Letters to the Editor
A mother’s plea, from Roycinda Alexander
The burden is our reality, from D. Ray Thomas
Editorials
America’s ballooning military budget is a boondoggle for Virginia’s taxpayers, by Greta Zarro
International & antiwar news
Israeli forces carry out brutal assault on al-Aqsa mosque
Norfolk protest says “NO to NATO!”
Statement on the Present Crisis in Ukraine
Categories: Uncategorized
The Virginia Defender 
Your statement on Ukraine is the grossest misrepresentation of the current realities. Not sure which Pro-Russia faction is paying for that statement, but the blatant pro-Russian propaganda is disgusting. I am no longer reading your newsletter, because if you are willing to lie on behalf of Russia, what else are you lying about?
I’m sure you will use “whataboutism” to dispute the following:
1) you make it seem like the people of Ukraine didn’t want a better relationship with the European Union than Russia. Their overthrow of a corrupt Russian puppet in 2014 was not a fascist movement, but a pro-democratic movement
2) you don’t discuss the invasion of Georgia. Were the people of Georgia also under fascist rule and NATO influence and thus in need of Russian invasion?
3) how about the Russian people? And how they were duped by an authoritarian who killed his own people and blamed it on Chechnya?
4) what about the election meddling in 2016 by Russia on behalf of the GOP, a political organization that is antithetical to your newsletter?
5) what about the “murder suicides” and jailing of Russian dissidents that want a democracy vs a Putin-led dictatorship?
6) nowhere in your statement on Ukraine do you discuss the civilian execution of Ukrainians in city streets by Russian soldiers. Or the shelling of innocent city populations.
Progressive newsletter, my ass. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
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