The Fight For Environmental Justice Broadens, Deepens & Becomes More Militant
by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers / May 25th, 2014
No longer dominated by the traditional “Big Green” groups that were taking big donations from corporate polluters, the new environmental movement is broader, more assertive and more creative. With extreme energy extraction and climate change bearing down on the world, environmental justice advocates are taking bold actions to stop extreme energy extraction and create new solutions to save the planet. These ‘fresh greens’ often work locally, but also connect through national and international actions.
The recent national climate assessment explains why the movement is deepening, broadening and getting more militant. The nation’s experts concluded that climate change is impacting …
1%-ers fight against the 99%-ers for rights to universal education, worker rights, unimpeded right to vote, and rights to a clean environment
by Kim Petersen / May 24th, 2014
Brave New Films have updated their documentary, Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition, on the billionaires David and Charles Koch. The Kochs like to operate in the dark, where evil is said to thrive. The best tonic is said to be shining a light in the darkness, and that is what Brave New Films has done.
Evil is an awfully loaded word, and I have only alluded to the word without direct reference to the Kochs. However, when you watch the film, now available online free (or donate what you can), and discover what drives the two silver spooners (the …
JEJU ISLAND, SOUTH KOREA – For the past two weeks, I’ve been in the Republic of Korea (ROK), as a guest of peace activists living in Gangjeong Village on ROK’s Jeju Island. Gangjeong is one of the ROK’s smallest villages, yet activists here, in their struggle against the construction of a massive naval base, have inspired people around the world.
Since 2007, activists have risked arrests, imprisonment, heavy fines and wildly excessive use of police force to resist the desecration caused as mega-corporations like Samsung and Daelim build a base to accommodate U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines for their …
Had extreme measures been inaugurated worldwide 20 years ago to sharply curtail reliance on fossil fuels, much of what we are now experiencing — unwelcome temperature change, dangerous storms, droughts, floods, etc. — would have been minimized. But to this day Washington is among the tiny minority of countries that have refused to ratify the basic UN document …
Since 1976, the bicentennial of the unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) that led to the founding of the United States of America from thirteen originally British colonies, Black History Month has been an officially recognised period—in February—when the descendants of the Founding Fathers acknowledge that the descendants of their slaves also have a history. Also in February, Presidents’ Day—initially George Washington’s birthday but now a combined birthday celebration for Washington and Abraham Lincoln: the Father of the Country and the Great Liberator. The year starts with Martin Luther King Day in January, when some whites and Blacks commemorate the man …
There are tentative signs that the people of Ethiopia are beginning to organise themselves and stand up against the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government, a brutal dictatorship, dressed in western democratic garb.
After 23 years of suppression at the hands of the EPRDF, simmering discontent and anger appears to finally be spilling over onto the streets. Robbed of hope, the people have had enough, enough of the wide-ranging human rights abuses. The denial of constitutional rights, the arbitrary imprisonments and torture, regime violence, the displacement of people from ancestral land, the partisan distribution of aid, and the rising …
May 25, 2014 is the 56th anniversary of Afrikan Liberation Day (ALD) and it should be observed as more than a commemorative event. ALD was institutionalized by the emerging independent states in Afrika to give focus, direction and resources to the struggle against colonial domination. However, the work of emancipating Afrika and Afrikans from exploitation and domination is still a work-in-progress during this post-colonial or flag independence moment. ALD started out as Africa Freedom Day (AFD) on April 15, 1958 at the Conference of Independent Afrikan States in Accra, Ghana, which had in attendance the eight states that won …
Michael Ratner — President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin: WikiLeaks promises to name the 5th country where MYSTIC mega data collection program is applied.
Kelly Cogswell is a columnist for New York’s Gay City News and the author of Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger. “Eating fire” refers to an initiation performed in front of spectators in which the Avengers lit torches and swallowed fire. In the following interview, Cogswell speaks about writing her memoir and her days with the Lesbian Avengers, a direct action group formed in 1992 to promote lesbian visibility and survival.
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John Wisniewski: What do you feel was accomplished by the activism of The Lesbian Avengers during the 1990’s?
Note — It’s pure satire. Maybe Swiftian, in a modern drone world where everything printed and digitized is collected by our overlords. Comedy. Humor. Something. Avatar — 57-year-old punch drunk minion of the Mighty Dead Middle Class!
How to Paddle Through the Sewage of News 24/7
Oh fools of the never-ending echo chamber. Academics coming on line acting as if they have discovered something. Old hat, old hand. These people today are great writers, talk the talk on National Propaganda Radio, get the gig in the New York Review of Books, and just yammer on and on.
I live in Philadelphia. There was a time when I wrote book reviews and op-eds for the Philadelphia Inquirer. That period ended, however, thanks to the intemperate language I hurled at its editors for the far too many articles and columns they published that attempted to justify an invasion of Iraq. Subsequently, whenever I was moved by something in the Inquirer that was egregiously lousy, I would write an article about it. Some of these articles eventually were given the title, “Stinky Inky.”
Well, the “Stinky Inky” is at it again. Upset by events in Ukraine, Trudy Rubin is stinking up …
The time of rational politics, if it ever existed, is over.
”Realpolitik” has become a mixture of marketing soundbites, propaganda and leaders making statements that border on the Theatre of the Absurd. Thinner and thinner links to Real-ity.
This is what happens when decline in being denied.
All empires go down. The U.S. empire is in decline. Macro historians (see British Arnold Toynbee’s 12-volume work 1934-61) tell that there are many reasons when empires fall:
• militarism with constant warfare;
• overextension – trying to control more than you can manage;
• loss of legitimacy in the eyes of others;
• structural economic crisis;
• moral decay;
• loss …
Ecological economists such as Herman Daly write that the more full the world becomes, the higher are the social or external costs of production.
Social or external costs are costs of production that are not captured in the price of the products. For example, dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico that result from chemicals used in agriculture are not included as costs in agricultural production. The price of food does not include the damage to the Gulf.
Food production is a source of large social costs. Indeed, it seems that the more food producers are able to lower the measured cost …
Bethlehem University is a very special place which I have been fortunate to visit several times. Described by its Vice-Chancellor as “an oasis of peace and a beacon of hope”, I found it a warmly-welcoming, vibrant melting-pot of Christian and Muslim giving off endlessly good vibes.
The University’s latest newsletter arrived today with this important announcement:
Bethlehem University is on the cusp of some major developments. The library renovation is the first important step in a comprehensive facility master plan that will shape the University over the next 40 years and beyond. The renovation will transform one of the oldest buildings on …
Profiting from Russian and Chinese Engineering, Technology, Manpower
by John Stanton / May 23rd, 2014
Boeing is a leader in creating the U.S.-China Aviation Cooperation program, an initiative of U.S. government and American aviation companies, working with CAAC and airlines to help advance China’s commercial aviation. Good corporate citizenship has always been an essential part of The Boeing Company. In China, the company’s vision for corporate social responsibility program is to stretch Boeing expertise and commitment to the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education of Chinese youth from elementary school to college.
— Boeing in China, Backgrounder, April 14, 2014
It is a fine thing that Boeing is supporting STEM education in China. But as part …
In Jaffa: Land of Oranges, Ghassan Kanafani described his exile from the Palestinian coastal city of Yafa.
As a 12-year-old boy, he struggled to understand, but “on that night, though, certain threads of that story became clearer .. a big truck was standing in front of our door. Light things, mainly sleeping items, were being chucked into the truck swiftly and hysterically.”
A few decades after Kanafai wrote about his exile, I, an 8-year-old boy from a Gaza refugee camp, pondered on my own. When I stood at the borders of Yafa, the line of what was real and imagined suddenly became …
On May 15, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed rules that would threaten net neutrality.
As stated by Michael Copps at the Common Cause grassroots organisation, “This is an alarming day for anyone who treasures a free and open Internet – which should be all of us”. Many are still unfamiliar with this subject, but they should take the time to learn what it means. Not simply US citizens should be concerned about a threat to net neutrality. US hegemony over the Internet means everyone should be concerned.
According to an analysis from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), rules …
As an extension of the North American Leaders Summit which was held in February, the defense ministers from the U.S., Canada and Mexico quietly met last month to discuss continental security issues. During the conference, they addressed shared defense and security challenges. This includes threats posed by cyber attacks and transnational criminal organizations. The North American security relationship has evolved with Mexico being increasingly viewed as a valued part of the continental defense team. The U.S., Canada and Mexico are building the framework for greater cooperation on common security issues. They are expanding security arrangements and are further establishing new …
Martha Rosenberg: Your recent book takes MSNBC to task for many reporting and moral failures. One of the book’s most scathing chapters is its analysis of MSNBC’s coverage of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
Michael Arria: Yes, the Manning and Snowden coverage shows how truncated liberal media can be. The leaks call into question the very objectives of our national security policies and domestic policies. While there was coverage of the collateral murder video [in which shows Americans shoot and kill …
On the Side of the Road is a documentary with a cathartic difference about the Palestinian Nakba; the 1948 catastrophe of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of over 500 Palestine villages and cities and the forced expulsion of 750,000 indigenous residents and its ongoing dispossession through illegal settlement expansion.
The difference factor is metanoia, μηταοια, meaning a profound moral and intellectual change of mind. A conversion. Lia Tarachansky offers a simple weapon to slay Israel’s enemy within; not Palestinian Israelis nor Palestinians in general, but, the real enemy within is the hasbaric (propaganda) cruel brainwashing of Israelis from the moment of …
Darren J. Mulloy is an Associate Professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier University and the author of American Extremism: History, Politics and the Militia Movement and The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War. In the following interview, Darren Mulloy speaks about the danger of American extremism, the Christian Right, and right-wing terrorism.
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John Wisniewski: Could you name some books and writings used by militiamen, and other extremists that attempt to establish separate homelands in the USA?
Darren Mulloy: Unlike certain white supremacist groups, the idea …
And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us a secret memo that gets us out of the bit about Thou-shalt-not-kill.
And, lo, as I was driving home from the committee hearing I was pulled over for speeding, and I said unto the officer, “I’ve got a memo that lets me speed. Would you like to see it?” and he said, “No thank you, and not your grocery list or your diary either.”
Transparency in drone murders has been a demand pushed …
Here’s today’s essay topic: The Paper of Record Does In-depth Profile of White Guy Environmentalist
Subtopic: Where’s the story?
Key discussion questions: 1) Is despair just a “White Male Thing?” 2) What is the role of art in times of ecocide?
First of all, it should be a subject of some bemusement that our contemporary media culture is so Talmudic that an entire essay can be a commentary on a single brief passage in our infinitely scrolling Torah of news; i.e., an interview in the New York Times – but so it is.
Do people exist to serve the economy or does the economy exist to serve people?
This question came to me as the left side of my brain was reading Thomas Piketty’s important new book Capital in the 21st Century while the right side of my brain watched the news.
There was an item about the B.C. government chopping money from university arts’ programs to fund apprenticeships because it would produce more taxpayers, which would be good for the economy, followed by a commercial touting the Northern Gateway pipeline, which also would be good the economy. As my right brain soaked in the …
A year ago, on May 23, 2013, I was in the audience at the National Defense University when President Barack Obama gave his major foreign policy address. Having worked for years trying to close the Guantanamo prison and stop US drone attacks, I was crushed to realize that the president’s speech was ending and he had not announced any significant change of course on either policy. My heart was pounding with fear—it’s not an easy thing to interrupt a president, but I decided to speak up.
I tried to channel the anguish of Guantanamo prisoners like Moath al-Alwi, …
It began late Tuesday night and, if we are fortunate, will last at least a week.
But it will return. We have no illusions that there will be continued quiet.
That’s because we are in the middle of yet another election cycle.
It’s not as bad as it was in 2008 or 2012 when we were getting five to ten robocalls every day from Democrats, Republicans, Friends of Democrats, Friends of Republicans, Chambers of Commerce, and unions.
During those years, almost every TV ad was someone praising his own political legacy or attacking her opponent for something that …
Hypocrisy, the most protected of vices.
— Moliere, 1672-1673
On Sunday May 11th, Ukraine’s referenda in the country’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk provinces were met with verbal condemnation from the US – accusations of the electorate voting “at the barrel of a gun”, in reportedly a near 90% turn out, nearly 90% in Donetsk voting for political independence from Kiev and 96.2% in Luhansk in favour of self rule.
Many did indeed vote at the barrels of guns – held by those sent by the US-UK-EU-NATO allies in the $5 Billion US coup in the capitol, Kiev, which replaced the elected government. Their …
In the first part of this Global Power Project series, I examined the origins and early evolution of the International Monetary Conference, an annual meeting (to be held June 1-3 in Munich) of several hundred of the world’s most influential bankers who gather in secrecy with the finance ministers, regulators and central bankers of the world’s most powerful nations. The second part looked at the role of the IMC in the lead-up to the 1980s debt crisis. Now, in Part 3, we examine the role the IMC played throughout that debt crisis which began in August of 1982.
I knew a torturer. I liked him. The man loved his dog, you have to give him that. A Mongolian shepherd. He’d trained it so that if you pointed a gun or even just made bang-bang fingers, the dog would run and jump and push your arm aside with its paws, so he could take out his own gun and shoot you first. He was heartbroken when that dog died.
Keith wasn’t much good at torture. Overall, he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. When I was in the wild east he was there too, looking for black-market Soviet …
War is America‘s main export. Without it, the USA is nothing. It’s economy depends on it.
Let’s take a look at the tip of a very deep iceberg.
For example, the US spending on its military in the year 2012 was the colossal amount of $684 billion. To get a perspective of just how high this spending is, this figure is less than what all the rest of the next 10 “military high spenders” countries of the world spent on defense put together. China, Russia, UK, Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy and Brazil together spent $654 billion on their military …
