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HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives by Tag 'Occupy movement'
It has been said by some of the original Black Panthers that, in their view, it wasn’t their armed self-defense against police violence that brought the full weight of state repression down on them. What brought it was their establishment of alternative institutions—s...
The Occupy movement in the United States is part of a global upsurge that began in Tunisia in late 2010, spread to Egypt and the Middle East, Wisconsin, Chile, Spain, Greece, Wall Street and the rest of the United States and now Quebec. I focus on the United States, parti...
I have no animosity towards people who supported and voted for President Obama. Well maybe a little, but only because I know your energy could have been put to better use. But if you vote, then given the options available, which is insanity or maybe slightly less insanity...
May Day 2012. Occupiers were gathering at the Oakland Plaza for the noon rally. My friend Steve Gilmartin and I had just arrived and were standing in the plaza near Broadway. Music was playing over the PA system, when suddenly “Mic check! Mic check!”...
There has been much talk about attempts by various organizations such as the Democratic Party and some top officials in organized labor to co-opt Occupy in order to steer this movement in directions beneficial to themselves. Such attempts can hardly be surprising, g...
If one were to honestly assess Occupy’s current strengths and weaknesses as a movement, confusion must be the inevitable result. This is because Occupy is not one movement, but an umbrella term that encompasses several different groups that have varied aims, organi...
The present situation of Europe is such that it can only lead to further social and political polarisation. Less than five years ago things were so different that it seems as if we were living in another world. Since 2008 the living conditions of the great majority of Eur...
Frankfurt, Germany.
It almost seemed as if the City of Frankfurt, Hessian Police and, after all, any court up to the Federal Constitutional Court (in German: Bundesverfassungsgericht, BverfG) went paranoid and hysterical all together and at once. What seem...
Less than six months before the November presidential elections in an exceptionally distressed United States the narrow, unpleasant parameters of political possibility are emerging. Two alternatives confront the American people, both to the right of center.
1. If P...
While it may be premature to speculate on the legacy left by the various social upheavals that have occurred since early-2011, the electoral tide sweeping across Europe offers additional evidence that something fundamental is happening. In Greece and France, vote...
Tens of thousands of students took to the streets of Montreal again on Saturday, in defiance of the Quebec government’s Bill 78, which aimed to legally curtail their rights to protest. As has become increasingly common, the students were greeted by police responses of t...
A new trove of heavily redacted documents provided by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) on behalf of filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawye...
The citizens of Spain have taken to the streets and squares in great numbers to demand their rights. Estimates vary enormously. Spain’s right-wing government claims that 22,000 people came out in Barcelona in the demonstrations on 12th May while the organiser...
This week, thousands are descending on North Carolina for the Bank of America shareholders’ meeting. The protest comes on the heels of the successful Wells Fargo shareholder event in San Francisco, where thousands of protesters shut down the conference, and the U....
The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead — because victory...
Disturbing news from Occupy circles about NYPD practices these days — I mean, in addition to all those other NYPD practices we were already disturbed about.
David Graeber, a prominent anarchist involved with Occupy since its beginning, recounts seeing a woman...
A recent article by Chris Hedges is once again causing heated arguments among activists in the Occupy Wall Street movement. “Black Bloc: The Cancer in Occupy,” was published in his syndicated ...
Chen Guangchen, the Chinese human activist, got four separate articles in the New York Times for May 5.
Jane Perlez and Michael Wines reported from Beijing on the deal that would get Chen and his family visas to the US, for him to take up a fellowship at NYU.
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Last Tuesday, Mayday, 2012, tens of thousands from Occupy Wall Street and a coalition of unions and immigrant rights groups marched in New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and other major cities to protest economic inequality and to celebrate other possi...
The concept is somewhat egotistical. But if you believe that what you have to offer is valuable, the published self-interview is an attention getter.
Recently, Michael Lewis, author of ...
May Day 2012 was a day when Occupy made clear to enemies, critics and co-opters alike that the Occupy movement is far from dead. All across the country rallies, marches, and direct actions put the 1% on notice for what will undoubtedly be a hot Spring and Summer. Be...
Many people might be surprised to learn that the May Day celebrations that occurred around the world yesterday were born more than a century ago out of a struggle by American workers for the eight-hour day.
The late nineteenth century was a particularly hard and br...
Dedicated to the students, young and old, of Southeastern Michigan and Northwestern Ohio
Dracula
On May Day sometime in the 1890s, an ordinary Englishman boarded a train in Mun...
Despite a generation of sensitivity trainings and multicultural studies, an astonishing number of people still feel emboldened to express their misbegotten bigotry in very public arenas. Cops and vigilantes alike are caught on tape throwing down racial slurs before they...
Several months before the 2008 general election, I stood with two other antiwar demonstrators outside of the town hall of a small town in Massachusetts. One of the other two demonstrators had demonstrated for peace there each Saturday at noon since just prior to the incep...