Global Newswire

100 Years Since Lawrence Textile Worker Strikes
by John de Graaf and David Batker

An important centennial is a terrible thing to waste. Some historic anniversaries can change the way we look at life and help us reevaluate our values and behavior. One such anniversary arrives on January 11. On that day a century ago, a group of women walked out of a textile mill to march in the streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts. During the following days and weeks, thousands of workers, most of them immigrant women, joined them.

The strikers were led by a radical young union, the Industrial Workers of the World, but their demands were humble: a reduction working hours from 56 to 54 hours a week and a pay raise of two cents an hour—from 16 to 18 cents.

The strike lasted for two months. The workers marched daily, singing union anthems, and later listening to organizers. They faced clubs, bayonets, and frequent arrests. Many were hauled off to jail, children in tow. One, Annie LoPizzo, was shot and killed by the police.

by Josh Levy

You may have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Simply put, this Web-censorship bill in the House could open the door to widespread Internet censorship.

Opposition to the bill has reached a boiling point. Millions of activists, hundreds of startups, social media sites like Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter and even big companies like Google, Yahoo! and eBay have joined with Free Press and other Internet advocacy groups against it.

This is one of the biggest tech stories of the year. Yet as a recent report from Media Matters for America shows, TV news has ignored it.

According to the report, SOPA — and Protect IP, its cousin in the Senate — have “received virtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their evening newscasts and opinion programming.” Among the offenders are ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC.

A likely reason for the media blackout? The big networks — and their parent companies — support these two Internet-censorship bills.

by Rethinking Schools Editorial

“Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn’t matter what I do, how hard I try—that’s my fate, too.” —11th-grade African American student, Berkeley, Calif. [ Seth Tobacman)]

This young man isn’t being cynical or melodramatic; he’s articulating a terrifying reality for many of the children and youth sitting in our classrooms—a reality that is often invisible or misunderstood. Some have seen the growing numbers of security guards and police in our schools as unfortunate but necessary responses to the behavior of children from poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods. But what if something more ominous is happening? What if many of our students—particularly our African American, Latina/o, Native American, and Southeast Asian children—are being channeled toward prison and a lifetime of second-class status?

Palestinian Women's Center Faces Many Obstacles to Provide Technical Training to Those in Need

Interview with Jihan Nasser, women's center computer technology trainer, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Palestinians under Israeli occupation experience many restrictions on their day-to-day lives, from lack of water and electricity to restrictions on movement to violence at the hands of Israeli settlers and the Israeli army. Outside Bethlehem, the Nassar family is struggling to hold on to its 100 hilltop acres, which the Israeli government is trying to seize to build more settlements, adding to those that already surround the Nassar farm. The family is working toward self-sufficiency on their farm, which they call Tent of Nations, as life grows ever more difficult for them and residents of the nearby village of Nahalin.

Story continues
http://www.btlonline.org/2012/seg/120113cf-btl-nasser.html

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This week's show features stories from Radio Deutsche-Welle, NHK World Radio Japan, Spanish National Radio, and Radio Havana Cuba.
From GERMANY- A state of emergency was called in parts of Nigeria following an Islamic insurgency and deadly tribal clashes. Protests emerged across Nigeria in response to the government removing fuel subsidies- gasoline prices doubled at the pump as recommended by the IMF and World Bank. The Pentagon says it will continue to send aircraft carriers to the Persian Gulf despite warnings from Iran. The South Korean President stated that he was hopeful that the new leader in the North, Kim Jong-Un could lead to better relations between the two states.

The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda
by Fawaz Gerges

The popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain have not only shaken the foundation of the authoritarian order in the Middle East, but they have also hammered a deadly nail in the coffin of a terrorism narrative which has painted Al-Qaeda as the West's greatest threat. At least, they should have.

Yet despite Osama bin Laden's killing in May, the dwindling of his group to the palest shadow of its former self and the protest of millions across the Arab world for whom the group never represented, Al-Qaeda holds a grasp on the Western imagination. Few Americans and Westerners realize the degree to which their fear of terrorism is misplaced, making closure over to the costly War on Terror difficult, if not impossible. Shrouded in myth and inflated by a self-sustaining industry of so-called terrorism "experts" and a well-funded national security industrial complex whose numbers swelled to nearly one million, the power of Al-Qaeda can only be eradicated when the fantasies around the group are laid to rest.

Myth 1: Al-Qaeda has been operational for more than two decades

by Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are engaged in intense maneuvering over Netanyahu's aim of entangling the United States in an Israeli war against Iran.

Netanyahu is exploiting the extraordinary influence his right-wing Likud Party exercises over the Republican Party and the U.S. Congress on matters related to Israel in order to maximise the likelihood that the United States would participate in an attack on Iran.

Obama, meanwhile, appears to be hoping that he can avoid being caught up in a regional war started by Israel if he distances the United States from any Israeli attack.

New evidence surfaced in 2011 that Netanyahu has been serious about dealing a military blow to the Iranian nuclear programme. Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who left his job in September 2010, revealed in his first public appearance after Mossad Jun. 2 that he, Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) chief Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin had been able to "block any dangerous adventure" by Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

by Doug Harvey

One of the more delusional aspects of capitalism is the idea that if one pursues the acquisition of private wealth with abandon, that this is somehow automatically “good” for human society.

The laissez-faire advocate and novelist Ayn Rand wrote that if one does not support this notion that greed is good and pursuing “enlightened self-interest,” (as Adam Smith characterized it), is the highest virtue, then one defaults to supporting a centralized oppressive regime that allows no personal freedom and no private wealth whatsoever. One supports living in darkness and despair or, in a word, Hell. This Manichean thinking is in keeping with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition dating back to the Indus Valley divide between the Vedic traditions and the Zoroastrian belief system of ancient Persia. The notion that the world is characterized by an ongoing “war” between the forces of light and the forces of darkness is at the base of much of so-called western thought.

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

It took two stolen US Presidential elections and the prospect of another one coming up in 2012.

For years the Democratic Party and even much of the left press has reacted with scorn for those who’ve reported on it.

But the imperial fraud that has utterly corrupted our electoral process seems finally to be dawning on a broadening core of the American electorate---if it can still be called that.

The shift is highlighted by three major developments:
1. The NAACP goes to the United Nations

In early December, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest civil rights organization in America, announced that it was petitioning the United Nations over the orchestrated GOP attack on black and Latino voters.

In its landmark report entitled Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America, the NAACP directly takes on the new Jim Crow tactics passed in fourteen states that are designed to keep minorities from voting in 2012.