A New Climate Movement In Bolivia By Naomi Klein

By Naomi Klein  Posted at Our World Report with the kind permission of The Nation. Cochabamba, Bolivia   It was 11 am and Evo Morales had turned a football stadium into a giant classroom, marshaling an array of props: paper plates, plastic cups, disposable raincoats, handcrafted gourds, wooden plates and multicolored ponchos. All came into [Read More...]

MLK Jr: His Most Courageous Speech

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has been quoted countless times and has become a nearly sainted icon around the world. Not without good reason. However, few remember (or care to remember) that from April, 1967 until his death he was demonized, called a communist by the New York Times. 55% of blacks and 72% of [Read More...]

An Officer & A Gentleman… & A Hero

Some of you may not be aware of a report by Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, an active duty US Army officer who has had four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan starting in 2005. His latest was a tour in Afghanistan 2010 – 2011. He created 2 reports, one classified and one unclassified. I have read [Read More...]

America In A Nutshell

This is my response to an email I received, purported to be a letter from a black American and member of the Tea Party. It expounded all the Tea Party rhetoric about Obama trying to destroy America by taking away our freedom via the Affordable Healthcare Act. My email was quite a rant and I [Read More...]

The JOBS Act: Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

The recent Republican bill, the so-called JOBS Act is meant to create confusion and mislead the American people. Similar to other bills with names that are intended to trick people such as the Bush2 initiative called Clear Skies. Clear Skies, if it had been enacted would have had dire consequences on the environment. Another example [Read More...]

Eve Ensler: Over It

In this video interview on Democracy Now, Eve Ensler reads her piece: Over It. Ms Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues has done much to advance woman’s issues. She’s involved with The City Of Joy in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is currently working/promoting a project called One Billion Rising. The number one billion [Read More...]

War Crimes

Remembering the Context of War Crimes: The Crime of War Itself By Camillo “Mac” Bica, posted at TruthOut.  One would think that, by now, America would have made the connection between war and atrocity. Or, are we too obsessed with our consumer-driven lifestyles, or too apathetic to even pay attention? Or perhaps we believe the [Read More...]

Winning Hearts & Minds?

We have all heard the euphemism “collateral damage.” To spin the carnage in this way makes the reality of dead women and children more abstract and hence more palatable to the American public. It becomes easier to avoid the fact that in the two acknowledged mideast wars, many more civilians are dead than enemy combatants. [Read More...]

Guantánamo, 10th Dark Anniversary

It is the 10th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo. It represents one of the darkest events in American history. In order for Guantánamo to exist required a complete moral, ethical and legal breakdown of our system of government which is supposed to be based on the rule of law. Democracy Now! [Read More...]

To Vote or Not To Vote? That Is The Question

Our two party system does not allow much of a choice. Corporatists all. How could it be otherwise, the money required to out compete a status quo candidate is an insurmountable obstacle (the last I read, 94% of winning candidates spent the most). It is predicted that each presidential candidate will spend around $1 billion [Read More...]

More Bradley Manning Updates

In a DemocracyNow! interview with Daniel Ellsberg (whistleblower of the Pentagon Papers), of Bradley Manning he said, “He’s been effectively punished now, ten-and-a-half months in Quantico in isolation, a kind of torture, according to the U.N. standards and to our own domestic law, that he couldn’t be sentenced to under our amendment to the Bill [Read More...]

Do Private Military Contractors Have Impunity to Torture?

By Laura Raymond Advocacy Program Manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Cross posted from Firedoglake.   Unbelievably, in 2011 this question has not yet been settled in the courts of the United States. Human rights attorneys are headed back to court in the coming month to argue that, yes, victims of war crimes and [Read More...]

No Logo: Brands, Globalization, Resistance

 Free trade is a combined government/corporate construct that promotes an ideal environment for large multi-national companies to maximize profits. It is a system that allows a company that may or may not have begun as a manufacturer of a product to contract with factories, often in developing countries to make the product. This allows a [Read More...]

Vandana Shiva: Understanding the Corporate Takeover

Vandana Shiva is a remarkable individual. She is so articulate about the problems caused by the corporate takeover around the world that the issues become clear. In this video she talks with Laura Flanders of Grit TV about a range of issues such as Monsanto’s despicable activities that result in the loss of biodiversity of [Read More...]

Occupy Wall Street: Official Statement 1

First Official Statement From #OccupyWallStreet Posted: 01 Oct 2011 04:25 PM PDT First Official Statement From #OccupyWallStreet posted at PlutocracyFiles This was unanimously voted on by all members of Occupy Wall Street last night, around 8pm, Sept 29. It is our first official document for release. We have three more underway, that will likely be released [Read More...]

Global Commission On Drug Policy

Our World Report note: You can read the complete UN document here or  download the complete report here:  UN Commission document as a pdf file. COMMISSIONERS: Asma Jahangir, human rights activist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Pakistan Carlos Fuentes, writer and public intellectual, Mexico César Gaviria, former President of Colombia [Read More...]

Tim DeChristopher, Where’s the Justice?

Tim DeChristopher was sentenced on Tuesday, July 26th. The only good thing that can be said is the judge didn’t take the prosecution’s recommendations seriously which would have meant 10 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Never-the-less, the judge wouldn’t allow testimony that would have shown the land auctions to be illegal. He also [Read More...]

Collateral Murder

U.S. serviceman Ethan McCord talks about his experiences on the ground at the scene of the attack helicopter video released by wikileaks. It is an emotionally charged graphic description of war and what is euphemistically called “collateral damage.” Be forewarned, this video has clips from the original and is disturbing.