by Ron Jacobs / November 4th, 2011
Let me preface this by saying I haven’t lived in the EastBay since the 1980s. However, I visit somewhat regularly and have contacts throughout the region. Some are small businesspeople. Some are anarchists living in warehouses. Some are Marxists working at a college or in a factory and some are old friends who still live on the street. The first place I lived in Oakland was off of 14th Avenue in East Oakland near Bobby Hutton Park. Then I moved to Dwight Way in Berkeley next to the recycling center. From there, I …
by Medea Benjamin and Robert Naiman / November 4th, 2011
Two boats full of courageous passengers were on their way to Gaza when they were intercepted on Friday, November 4, by the Israeli military in international waters. We call the passengers courageous because they sailed from Turkey on November 2 with the knowledge that at any moment they might be boarded by Israeli commandos intent on stopping them—perhaps violently, as the Israeli military did in 2010 when they killed nine humanitarian aid workers on the Turkish boat named Mavi Marmara.
The boats—one from Canada and one from Ireland—were carrying 27 passengers, including press and peace activists from Ireland, Canada, the United …
by E.R. Bills / November 4th, 2011
Last week one of my conservative friends made a joke. He said “I’m tired of hearing that conservatives don’t care about the environment. Aren’t we the ones that championed the use of the electric chair to execute murderers?
“Gas is much more harmful for the environment,” he added. “And, truth be told, lethal injection is a gateway drug.”
Many folks found it humorous, especially the “gateway” drug line.
I was less impressed. But it got me to thinking. Maybe conservatives (and Republicans by association) are more environmentally conscious …
by Mary Andes / November 4th, 2011
I love occupations. I really, really do. Not only can they be really fun (its like a sleepover! Where people talk about Žižek and Marx!), but I honestly think they can be an effective tactic for change – they are the right mix of political theatre and direct action, and given the right conditions and demands, can be quite useful.
I love occupying, I love occupations, and so what I’m writing here almost pains me to admit.
I do not like the Occupy Wall Street movement.
… Except it’s not that clearcut. I want it to be that clearcut, …
The Israeli-Occupied Hearing on Alleged Iranian Terror
by Maidhc Ó Cathail / November 4th, 2011
In the wake of the much-heralded FBI sting that supposedly foiled a dastardly plot by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard elite Qods Force – involving a bumbling, failed used-car salesman’s botched attempt to hire a reportedly Mossad-trained Mexican drug cartel – to blow up the Saudi ambassador in a crowded but fictitious Washington D.C. restaurant, a duly alarmed U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security convened an urgent hearing on “Iranian Terror Operations on American Soil.” As evidence of Tehran’s supposed threat to the Homeland, the Committee …
by Pham Binh / November 4th, 2011
Occupy has gone viral. First we had flash trading, then flash mobs, and now a flash movement.
But this is no flash in the pan.
The Occupy movement is here to stay, come hell or high water, because the status quo is unacceptable. Not since the 1960s and 1930s have tens of thousands of people been this defiant and determined to win economic and social justice. What is unfolding is in many ways a synthesis of the movements of those eras.
Our emphasis on mass, nonviolent resistance in the face of repression is a product of the civil rights movement. When four black …
by Eric Walberg / November 4th, 2011
The Popular Campaign to Drop Egypt’s Debts was launched at the Journalists’ Union 31 October, with a colourful panel of speakers, including Al-Ahram Centre for Political & Strategic Studies Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Al-Naggar, Independent Trade Union head Kamal Abbas, legendary anti-corruption crusader Khaled Ali, and the head of the Tunisia twin campaign Dr Fathi Chamkhi.
Moderator Wael Gamal, a financial journalist, described how he and a core of revolutionaries after 25 January started the campaign with a facebook page DropEgyptsDebt. The IMF offer of a multi-billion dollar loan in June was like a red flag in front of a bull for Gamal, …
by Justin O'Connell / November 4th, 2011
The story of the Hunt Brother’s — Nelson and William Herbert — attempt to corner the silver market in the 1980’s is one of the best known examples in the commodity markets of financial heavyweights purchasing enough stock so as to be able to manipulate it as they please. The Hunt brothers did not keep the greatest market share for long, but they certainly did help to make completely lopsided, in favor of finance capital, the silver market since that time.
In the mid-to-late 1970s, the world was a very unstable place, much like today. Not only did the American economy …
by E.R. Bills / November 3rd, 2011
How do you know if the community you live in is healthy? What are the symptoms of societal sickness?
Is civil strife a good indicator?
What about wide-scale despair or a prevalent lack of hope for the future?
In 2003, I spent some time in Cambodia. I crossed the border at Poi Pet and traveled up the main, red dirt highway to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat. It was one of the most uncomfortable journeys of my life.
I sat in the back seat of a cramped sedan and stared out the side windows. Every few hundred meters or so, on either side …
by Alexandra Morton / November 3rd, 2011
Today I received reports from two laboratories.
Dr. Are Nylund at the University of Bergen, Norway confirmed the ISA virus detection by Canadian lab, Dr. Fred Kibenge, in Rivers Inlet sockeye smolts. Dr. Nylund reports he only got a positive in one of the fish and this result was close to the detection limit for the test that he used. In the report below, the higher the value, the lower the amount of virus. He said the sample was poor quality. We are on a steep learning curve here, having never dealt with viruses, keeping the samples in a home-type freezer …
by David Swanson / November 3rd, 2011
Feints and baby steps in the direction of eventually ending a massive crime are not enough. Hoping to meet a distant deadline for ending a war that cannot be justified for a single day is not enough. A new misunderstanding should not be piled on top of other fictional accomplishments (the closing of Guantanamo, the complete withdrawal from Iraq, universal health coverage, etc.). But if we don’t understand that we are beginning to move things in the right direction many among us will lose heart and others will miscalculate.
This is what the Associated Press had to say on Thursday morning …
by Ramzy Baroud / November 3rd, 2011
Following Tunisia’s first fair and free elections on October 27, the Western media responded with a characteristic sense of fear and alarm. For many, it seemed that the ghost of the Islamic menace was back to haunt ‘Western values’ throughout the Arab world. The narrative employed by media outlets was no more than cleverly disguised Islamophobia, masquerading as genuine concern for democracy and the welfare of women and minority groups.
The victory of the Ennahda (meaning Renaissance) Party was all but predictable. Official results showed that the party won more than 41 percent of the vote, providing it with 90 seats …
by Felicity Arbuthnot / November 3rd, 2011
Absolutism, tempered by assassination.
— Ernst Munster, 1766-1839
Oh, well! Time to move on, folks. Nothing to see here. Now there is an oil man, who spent many years in the United States, shoed in as “interim Prime Minister” in Libya. It’s time to go a-toppling again.
Don’t mention the dead, distraught, destroyed, the mass graves and mass murders by NATO and their ethnic cleansers at ground level, tutored by their Special Services. There’s oil to pump, rebuilding contracts to be divvied out, a bit of looting – and near certainly no accounting for all of Libya’s frozen assets, being minimally returned in …
by Ted Glick / November 3rd, 2011
On Monday, October 31, speaking about a possible permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, President Obama’s press secretary Jay Carney told the press that “this is a decision that will be made by the State Department.”
On Tuesday, November 1, speaking during an interview at the White House with a reporter from Omaha, Nebraska-based TV station KETV, President Obama himself said that he will be making the decision.
More than that, Obama gave the rhetorical back of his hand to the false argument of pipeline supporters that it is a big jobs creator:
I think folks in Nebraska, like all across
…
by Gareth Porter / November 3rd, 2011
IPS — U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.
That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. The report by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on civilian casualties in 2010 had said the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) by insurgents was the leading cause of civilian deaths with 904.
Except for a relatively few women and children killed by accident, …
