Juan Cole: "Egypt is a Praetorian Regime"
Democracy Now
Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets across Egypt today in the fourth day [from friday] of unprecedented protests against the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. We speak with University of Michigan professor of history Juan Cole. "The Arab world has seen, in the last three decades, a series of Arab nationalist regimes, relatively secular, which have become increasingly sclerotic," Cole says.
Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan. His writes regularly about Middle East issues on his blog, Informed Comment ... His most recent book is Engaging the Muslim World.
To Listen to the Episode
Monday, January 31, 2011
Democracy Now: 1/31/11 Reports on Egyptian Uprising
Democracy Now!’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous Live from Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger
Massive protests in Egypt have entered their seventh day as tens of thousands pack into Tahrir Square in Cairo. Protesters are vowing to stay in the streets until President Hosni Mubarak resigns. A general strike was called for today, and a "million man march" is being organized for Tuesday. We speak with Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is in Cairo. "This is a popular uprising across all segments of society," Kouddous says. "People are so fed up with Mubarak, it’s hard to describe. They curse him. They want him to step down. And they will not leave the streets of Cairo, the streets of Egypt, until he does."
Repression and Poverty Underpin the Uprising in Egypt
Recent events in Egypt could be an opportunity for the United States to support the people of Egypt, but no Obama administration official has recommended publicly that President Hosni Mubarak should step down. We speak with Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, about the U.S.-backed Mubarak regime and the record inflation and poverty that underpin the ongoing protests. "In Egypt, from 2004 until the present, the government and its reforms were applauded in Washington by World Bank, the IMF and U.S. officials," Shehata says. "But what all of that masked was what was going on at the level of real people and ordinary lives." [includes rush transcript]
Made in the U.S.A.: Tear Gas, Tanks, Helicopters, Rifles and Fighter Planes in Egypt Funded and Built Largely by U.S. Defense Department and American Corporations
The United States has given billion dollars of military aid to Egypt over the last decades. Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Electric have provided tanks, missiles, engines and more to the Hosni Mubarak regime. Following the massive popular uprising, U.S. foreign aid continues to flow to Egypt, although the Obama administration has placed the program under review. We speak with William Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, and Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University.
Leading Egyptian Feminist, Nawal El Saadawi: "Women and Girls are Beside Boys in the Streets"
Renowned feminist and human rights activist Nawal El Saadawi was a political prisoner and exiled from Egypt for years. Now she has returned to Cairo, and she joins us to discuss the role of women during the last seven days of unprecedented protests. "Women and girls are beside boys in the streets," El Saadawi says. "We are calling for justice, freedom and equality, and real democracy and a new constitution, no discrimination between men and women, no discrimination between Muslims and Christians, to change the system... and to have a real democracy."
Massive protests in Egypt have entered their seventh day as tens of thousands pack into Tahrir Square in Cairo. Protesters are vowing to stay in the streets until President Hosni Mubarak resigns. A general strike was called for today, and a "million man march" is being organized for Tuesday. We speak with Democracy Now! senior producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who is in Cairo. "This is a popular uprising across all segments of society," Kouddous says. "People are so fed up with Mubarak, it’s hard to describe. They curse him. They want him to step down. And they will not leave the streets of Cairo, the streets of Egypt, until he does."
Repression and Poverty Underpin the Uprising in Egypt
Recent events in Egypt could be an opportunity for the United States to support the people of Egypt, but no Obama administration official has recommended publicly that President Hosni Mubarak should step down. We speak with Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, about the U.S.-backed Mubarak regime and the record inflation and poverty that underpin the ongoing protests. "In Egypt, from 2004 until the present, the government and its reforms were applauded in Washington by World Bank, the IMF and U.S. officials," Shehata says. "But what all of that masked was what was going on at the level of real people and ordinary lives." [includes rush transcript]
Made in the U.S.A.: Tear Gas, Tanks, Helicopters, Rifles and Fighter Planes in Egypt Funded and Built Largely by U.S. Defense Department and American Corporations
The United States has given billion dollars of military aid to Egypt over the last decades. Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Electric have provided tanks, missiles, engines and more to the Hosni Mubarak regime. Following the massive popular uprising, U.S. foreign aid continues to flow to Egypt, although the Obama administration has placed the program under review. We speak with William Hartung, author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, and Samer Shehata, assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University.
Leading Egyptian Feminist, Nawal El Saadawi: "Women and Girls are Beside Boys in the Streets"
Renowned feminist and human rights activist Nawal El Saadawi was a political prisoner and exiled from Egypt for years. Now she has returned to Cairo, and she joins us to discuss the role of women during the last seven days of unprecedented protests. "Women and girls are beside boys in the streets," El Saadawi says. "We are calling for justice, freedom and equality, and real democracy and a new constitution, no discrimination between men and women, no discrimination between Muslims and Christians, to change the system... and to have a real democracy."
Deepa Kumar: The Rise of Anti-Muslim Hate
The rise of anti-Muslim hate
By Deepa Kumar
International Socialist Review
FROM ATTACKS at mosques and mobilizations against proposed mosque sites, to physical attacks on Muslims and Koran burnings, racism in the United States against Muslims and Arabs has reached new heights in recent months.
At the center of this storm has been the proposal to build an Islamic community center called Cordoba House—recently renamed Park51—two blocks from “Ground Zero,” the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed on September 11, 2001. What began as a fairly non-controversial project, and one moreover that had the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other New York City politicians, turned into a grave affront to the victims of 9/11 within a matter of a few months.
The effort to brand the center as the “victory mosque” was led by far right-wing groups associated with the Tea Party movement. These forces along with sections of the Republican Party were so successful in setting the terms of debate that anywhere between 541 and 682 percent of Americans expressed opposition to the project at its proposed location.
The speed at which the campaign against the project was able to shift public opinion—in spite of the fact that the current building, the former site of a Burlington Coat Factory, has been used as a Muslim prayer center for two years, and is located two and a half long Manhattan blocks from the site of the Twin Towers, in a neighborhood which includes a strip club and an off-track betting office—is a strong indication of how politicians, the media, and popular culture have successfully demonized Muslims in the United States over the past several years.
Cordoba House: The beginnings
In 2009, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who has served as a cleric in the downtown Manhattan area for over a quarter century, proposed the construction of a community center modeled on the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan and the 92nd Street Y. The goal of the center was to promote greater understanding of the Muslim community.
The name “Cordoba House” refers to the city of Cordoba in Spain, which during Europe’s “Dark Ages” was a leading cultural center of the Muslim empire that ruled the Iberian penninsula. Cordoba represented not only a high point of intellectual development, but also marked a period of peaceful co-existence among Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
Imam Rauf, who positions himself as a “moderate Muslim” (he gave training speeches for the FBI and the State Department after 9/11), envisioned a community center with recreation facilities like a swimming pool, basketball court, gym, a culinary school, art studios, a child care center, and badly needed prayer space for the Muslim community in downtown Manhattan. His vision was to enable people of all faiths to interact.
The project was so non-threatening that even Mayor Bloomberg gave his support to it, and when the controversy hit, defended it in a speech delivered on August 3 with the Statue of Liberty in the background.3 When the New York Times ran a front-page story in December 2009, the overall tone was positive. The Times quoted Feisal saying, “We want to push back against the extremists.”4 A mother of a 9/11 victim also publicly backed the Islamic center.5
The project was even applauded by right-wing Fox anchor Laura Ingraham. While Ingraham, in an interview with Cordoba House co-founder Daisy Khan in December 2009, could barely hold back her anti-Muslim prejudices, arguing that Muslim majority countries from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon are intolerant toward Christians, she nevertheless gave her support to Khan, saying, “I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it.… I like what you’re trying to do.”6
On May 6, 2010, the New York City Community Board voted unanimously to approve the project.
Enter Stop Islamization of America
As Salon reporter Justin Elliott has documented, the Cordoba House project did not begin to become controversial until May 2010.
In response to the Community Board’s decision, Pamela Geller, a right-wing blogger, posted an entry titled, “Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction.” In it, she wrote, “This is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem.” The next day her group, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), launched “Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!”7
Stop Islamization of America, premised on the notion that Muslims are conspiring to take over the United States, called a protest for May 29 against what Geller called the “911 Monster Mosque.”
Geller is a fan of far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders (and the feeling is mutual, given his glowing blurb for the book she co-authored on the Obama presidency), and an admirer of open fascists and street gangs such as the English Defense League that routinely attack Muslims and immigrants. She once claimed that Black South Africans were launching a “genocide” against whites.8 A staunch Zionist, in an Israeli column she calls the term “Palestinian” “fallacious,” and she exhorted Israelis to, “Stand loud and proud. Give up nothing. Turn over not a pebble. For every rocket fired, drop a MOAB. Take back Gaza. Secure Judea and Samaria.”9
Subsequently, the New York Post ran articles that extensively quoted Geller and her vitriolic rhetoric. One article claimed falsely that Cordoba House’s opening date was set for September 11, 2011. This was the moment, Elliott suggests, when this story spread like wildfire, gaining media attention not only on Fox and other conservative outlets, but also the mainstream media.
By Deepa Kumar
International Socialist Review
FROM ATTACKS at mosques and mobilizations against proposed mosque sites, to physical attacks on Muslims and Koran burnings, racism in the United States against Muslims and Arabs has reached new heights in recent months.
At the center of this storm has been the proposal to build an Islamic community center called Cordoba House—recently renamed Park51—two blocks from “Ground Zero,” the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed on September 11, 2001. What began as a fairly non-controversial project, and one moreover that had the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other New York City politicians, turned into a grave affront to the victims of 9/11 within a matter of a few months.
The effort to brand the center as the “victory mosque” was led by far right-wing groups associated with the Tea Party movement. These forces along with sections of the Republican Party were so successful in setting the terms of debate that anywhere between 541 and 682 percent of Americans expressed opposition to the project at its proposed location.
The speed at which the campaign against the project was able to shift public opinion—in spite of the fact that the current building, the former site of a Burlington Coat Factory, has been used as a Muslim prayer center for two years, and is located two and a half long Manhattan blocks from the site of the Twin Towers, in a neighborhood which includes a strip club and an off-track betting office—is a strong indication of how politicians, the media, and popular culture have successfully demonized Muslims in the United States over the past several years.
Cordoba House: The beginnings
In 2009, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who has served as a cleric in the downtown Manhattan area for over a quarter century, proposed the construction of a community center modeled on the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan and the 92nd Street Y. The goal of the center was to promote greater understanding of the Muslim community.
The name “Cordoba House” refers to the city of Cordoba in Spain, which during Europe’s “Dark Ages” was a leading cultural center of the Muslim empire that ruled the Iberian penninsula. Cordoba represented not only a high point of intellectual development, but also marked a period of peaceful co-existence among Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
Imam Rauf, who positions himself as a “moderate Muslim” (he gave training speeches for the FBI and the State Department after 9/11), envisioned a community center with recreation facilities like a swimming pool, basketball court, gym, a culinary school, art studios, a child care center, and badly needed prayer space for the Muslim community in downtown Manhattan. His vision was to enable people of all faiths to interact.
The project was so non-threatening that even Mayor Bloomberg gave his support to it, and when the controversy hit, defended it in a speech delivered on August 3 with the Statue of Liberty in the background.3 When the New York Times ran a front-page story in December 2009, the overall tone was positive. The Times quoted Feisal saying, “We want to push back against the extremists.”4 A mother of a 9/11 victim also publicly backed the Islamic center.5
The project was even applauded by right-wing Fox anchor Laura Ingraham. While Ingraham, in an interview with Cordoba House co-founder Daisy Khan in December 2009, could barely hold back her anti-Muslim prejudices, arguing that Muslim majority countries from Saudi Arabia to Lebanon are intolerant toward Christians, she nevertheless gave her support to Khan, saying, “I can’t find many people who really have a problem with it.… I like what you’re trying to do.”6
On May 6, 2010, the New York City Community Board voted unanimously to approve the project.
Enter Stop Islamization of America
As Salon reporter Justin Elliott has documented, the Cordoba House project did not begin to become controversial until May 2010.
In response to the Community Board’s decision, Pamela Geller, a right-wing blogger, posted an entry titled, “Monster Mosque Pushes Ahead in Shadow of World Trade Center Islamic Death and Destruction.” In it, she wrote, “This is Islamic domination and expansionism. The location is no accident. Just as Al-Aqsa was built on top of the Temple in Jerusalem.” The next day her group, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), launched “Campaign Offensive: Stop the 911 Mosque!”7
Stop Islamization of America, premised on the notion that Muslims are conspiring to take over the United States, called a protest for May 29 against what Geller called the “911 Monster Mosque.”
Geller is a fan of far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders (and the feeling is mutual, given his glowing blurb for the book she co-authored on the Obama presidency), and an admirer of open fascists and street gangs such as the English Defense League that routinely attack Muslims and immigrants. She once claimed that Black South Africans were launching a “genocide” against whites.8 A staunch Zionist, in an Israeli column she calls the term “Palestinian” “fallacious,” and she exhorted Israelis to, “Stand loud and proud. Give up nothing. Turn over not a pebble. For every rocket fired, drop a MOAB. Take back Gaza. Secure Judea and Samaria.”9
Subsequently, the New York Post ran articles that extensively quoted Geller and her vitriolic rhetoric. One article claimed falsely that Cordoba House’s opening date was set for September 11, 2011. This was the moment, Elliott suggests, when this story spread like wildfire, gaining media attention not only on Fox and other conservative outlets, but also the mainstream media.
Socialism/Marxism: Peace and Conflict Studies Archive
Baggins, Brian. "The Black Panther Party." Marxist Internet Archive (Archive: 2002)
"The Bamako Appeal." Monthly Review (February 13, 2006)
BCTC Socialist Student Union (Check it out if you are interested--Facebook page)
Behind the News with Doug Henwood (KPFA: Berkeley)
DiLeo, Petrino. "An Economic History of the Great Depression." We Are Many (June 18, 2009)
Einstein, Albert. "Why Socialism?" Monthly Review (May 1949)
Foster, John Bellamy. "Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital: The U.S. Case." Monthly Review (July 1, 2011)
Foster, John Bellamy, Robert W. McChesney and R. Jamil Jonna. "Monopoly and Competition in Twenty-First Century Capitalism." Monthly Review (April 1, 2011)
Goldman, Wendy. "Purges in the USSSR." History for the Future (May 21, 2010)
Green, James. "Death in the Haymarket." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
Harburg, Ernie. "A Tribute to Blacklisted Lyricist Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz." Democracy Now (December 26, 2011)
Harkin, Shaun. "Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
Harvey, David. "Feral Capitalism Hits the Streets." Reading Marx's Capital (August 11, 2011)
---. Reading Capital with David Harvey (A close reading of the text of Karl Marx’s Capital Volume I in 13 video lectures: 2011)
Haymarket Books ("Haymarket Books is a nonprofit, progressive book distributor and publisher, a project of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change. We believe that activists need to take ideas, history, and politics into the many struggles for social justice today. Learning the lessons of past victories, as well as defeats, can arm a new generation of fighters for a better world. As Karl Marx said, “The philosophers have merely interpreted the world; the point however is to change it.” We take inspiration and courage from our namesakes, the Haymarket Martyrs, who gave their lives fighting for a better world. Their 1886 struggle for the eight-hour day, which gave us May Day, the international workers’ holiday, reminds workers around the world that ordinary people can organize and struggle for their own liberation. These struggles continue today across the globe—struggles against oppression, exploitation, hunger, and poverty.")
International Socialist Review (The ISR is published bimonthly by the Center for Economic Research and Social Change.)
International Viewpoint ["International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow."]
Le Blanc, Paul. "What Do Socialists Say About Democracy." International Socialist Review #74 (November/December 2010)
Left Business Observer
Liberation News ["The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a working-class party of leaders and activists from many different struggles, founded to promote the movement for revolutionary change. Capitalism—the system in which all wealth and power is held by a tiny group of billionaires and their state—is the source of the main problems confronting humanity today: imperialist war, poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression, environmental destruction, mass imprisonment, unionbusting and more. We are fighting for socialism, a system where the wealth of society belongs to those who produce it—the workers—and is used in a planned and sustainable way for the benefit of all. In place of greed, domination and exploitation, we stand for solidarity, friendship and cooperation between all peoples. The Party for Socialism and Liberation seeks to bring together leaders and organizers from the many struggles taking place across the country. The most crucial requirement for membership is the dedication to undertake this most important and most necessary of all tasks—building a new revolutionary workers’ party in the heart of world imperialism. At the same time as we aim for revolution in this country, we stand for defense of the existing workers’ states, the national liberation movements, and for workers and oppressed people around the world. The magnitude of our tasks will be matched by our determination to win."]
MacArthur, Julie L. "From Fenians to financiers: James Connolly and the Irish meltdown." (December 16, 2010)
Marxism and Native Americans. ed. Ward Churchill. Boston: South End Press, 1992. [Available in BCTC Library]
McChesney, Robert W. and John Bellamy Foster. "Capitalism, The Absurd System: A View From the United States." Monthly Review (June 2010)
McLemee, Scott. "CLR James and African American Liberation." We Are Many (June 18, 2009)
Monthly Review ["In May 1949 Monthly Review began publication in New York City, as cold war hysteria gathered force in the United States. The first issue featured the lead article Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein. From the first Monthly Review spoke for socialism and against U.S. imperialism, and is still doing so today. From the first Monthly Review was independent of any political organization, and is still so today. The McCarthy era inquisition targeted Monthly Review's original editors Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman, who fought back successfully. In the subsequent global upsurge against capitalism, imperialism and the commodification of life (in shorthand “1968”) Monthly Review played a global role. A generation of activists received no small part of their education as subscribers to the magazine and readers of Monthly Review Press books. In the intervening years of counter-revolution, Monthly Review has kept a steady viewpoint. That point of view is the heartfelt attempt to frame the issues of the day with one set of interests foremost in mind: those of the great majority of humankind, the propertyless."]
New Left Review [A 160-page journal published every two months from London, New Left Review analyses world politics, the global economy, state powers and protest movements; contemporary social theory, history and philosophy; cinema, literature, heterodox art and aesthetics. It runs a regular book review section and carries interviews, essays, topical comments and signed editorials on political issues of the day."]
Resnick, Stephen. "Econ 305: Marxian Economics." (38 video lectures: 2011)
Schwalbe, Michael. "A Primer on Class Struggle." Common Dreams (March 31, 2011)
Seeing Red Radio (WXOJ: Northampton, MA -- "Seeing Red Radio is a Revolutionary Socialist radio program that covers the headlines from the front-lines of the International class war. Whether from Oaxaca to Amherst, Chicopee to Caracas, Seeing Red Radio chronicles the struggles of workers to free themselves from the oppressions of globalized capitalism. Tune in and arm yourself with the history, culture, and theory that can make a more humane world possible.")
Smith, Martin. The Rise of the Right in Europe." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
Strickland, Ron. "Cultural Theory: Althusser's Concept of Ideology." Marxism 101 (July 16, 2007)
Terrano, Charles. "A Question of Growth." Bluegrass Socialist Party (Septemeber 18, 2011)
Walsh, David. "Why has The Passion of the Christ evoked such a popular response in America?" World Socialist Web Site (March 5, 2004)
We Are Many ("There are so many voices and so many struggles scattered across the planet (and the internet). We are attempting to gather these voices "in unvanquishable number" into a site that can offer a platform and, we hope, inspiration for action. The obstacles activists face today, like those faced by workers and the oppressed in Shelley's day, are great. But our numbers are greater, and with solidarity and unity we can hope to begin to make changes in the systems we oppose. This site cannot be exhaustive, and that is not our intent. We are simply trying to offer a small sampling of the best radical audio and video sources we know of. We know that the internet provides vast opportunities to share information and ideas, but we do not believe that this can replace the real actions of real people. We encourage our visitors, friends, fellow-travelers, and comrades to take inspiration from the people included here into their own struggles for justice. The idea of this website first came from the annual Socialism conferences, packed with so many speakers and discussions and debates and our desire to share these discussions with others on a single platform. We had collected hundreds of talks and meetings over the years, but had never shared them in a coherent way. We hope you find this effort useful.")
Whitehouse, David. "Crisis and Class Struggle in China." We Are Many (June 18, 2009)
Wolff, Richard D. "Austerity Programs." (Video on YouTube: February 25, 2011)
---. "Class Warfare and Economic Analysis." Law and Disorder Radio (April 2011)
---. "The Continuing Economic Crisis." History for the Future (May 31, 2011)
---. "Housing and the Economy." History for the Future (September 14, 2010)
---. "A Tale of Two Lootings." Truthout (August 3, 2011)
"The Bamako Appeal." Monthly Review (February 13, 2006)
BCTC Socialist Student Union (Check it out if you are interested--Facebook page)
Behind the News with Doug Henwood (KPFA: Berkeley)
DiLeo, Petrino. "An Economic History of the Great Depression." We Are Many (June 18, 2009)
Einstein, Albert. "Why Socialism?" Monthly Review (May 1949)
Foster, John Bellamy. "Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital: The U.S. Case." Monthly Review (July 1, 2011)
Foster, John Bellamy, Robert W. McChesney and R. Jamil Jonna. "Monopoly and Competition in Twenty-First Century Capitalism." Monthly Review (April 1, 2011)
Goldman, Wendy. "Purges in the USSSR." History for the Future (May 21, 2010)
Green, James. "Death in the Haymarket." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
Harburg, Ernie. "A Tribute to Blacklisted Lyricist Yip Harburg: The Man Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz." Democracy Now (December 26, 2011)
Harkin, Shaun. "Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
Harvey, David. "Feral Capitalism Hits the Streets." Reading Marx's Capital (August 11, 2011)
---. Reading Capital with David Harvey (A close reading of the text of Karl Marx’s Capital Volume I in 13 video lectures: 2011)
Haymarket Books ("Haymarket Books is a nonprofit, progressive book distributor and publisher, a project of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change. We believe that activists need to take ideas, history, and politics into the many struggles for social justice today. Learning the lessons of past victories, as well as defeats, can arm a new generation of fighters for a better world. As Karl Marx said, “The philosophers have merely interpreted the world; the point however is to change it.” We take inspiration and courage from our namesakes, the Haymarket Martyrs, who gave their lives fighting for a better world. Their 1886 struggle for the eight-hour day, which gave us May Day, the international workers’ holiday, reminds workers around the world that ordinary people can organize and struggle for their own liberation. These struggles continue today across the globe—struggles against oppression, exploitation, hunger, and poverty.")
International Socialist Review (The ISR is published bimonthly by the Center for Economic Research and Social Change.)
International Viewpoint ["International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow."]
Le Blanc, Paul. "What Do Socialists Say About Democracy." International Socialist Review #74 (November/December 2010)
Left Business Observer
Liberation News ["The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a working-class party of leaders and activists from many different struggles, founded to promote the movement for revolutionary change. Capitalism—the system in which all wealth and power is held by a tiny group of billionaires and their state—is the source of the main problems confronting humanity today: imperialist war, poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, lesbian/gay/bi/trans oppression, environmental destruction, mass imprisonment, unionbusting and more. We are fighting for socialism, a system where the wealth of society belongs to those who produce it—the workers—and is used in a planned and sustainable way for the benefit of all. In place of greed, domination and exploitation, we stand for solidarity, friendship and cooperation between all peoples. The Party for Socialism and Liberation seeks to bring together leaders and organizers from the many struggles taking place across the country. The most crucial requirement for membership is the dedication to undertake this most important and most necessary of all tasks—building a new revolutionary workers’ party in the heart of world imperialism. At the same time as we aim for revolution in this country, we stand for defense of the existing workers’ states, the national liberation movements, and for workers and oppressed people around the world. The magnitude of our tasks will be matched by our determination to win."]
MacArthur, Julie L. "From Fenians to financiers: James Connolly and the Irish meltdown." (December 16, 2010)
Marxism and Native Americans. ed. Ward Churchill. Boston: South End Press, 1992. [Available in BCTC Library]
McChesney, Robert W. and John Bellamy Foster. "Capitalism, The Absurd System: A View From the United States." Monthly Review (June 2010)
McLemee, Scott. "CLR James and African American Liberation." We Are Many (June 18, 2009)
Monthly Review ["In May 1949 Monthly Review began publication in New York City, as cold war hysteria gathered force in the United States. The first issue featured the lead article Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein. From the first Monthly Review spoke for socialism and against U.S. imperialism, and is still doing so today. From the first Monthly Review was independent of any political organization, and is still so today. The McCarthy era inquisition targeted Monthly Review's original editors Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman, who fought back successfully. In the subsequent global upsurge against capitalism, imperialism and the commodification of life (in shorthand “1968”) Monthly Review played a global role. A generation of activists received no small part of their education as subscribers to the magazine and readers of Monthly Review Press books. In the intervening years of counter-revolution, Monthly Review has kept a steady viewpoint. That point of view is the heartfelt attempt to frame the issues of the day with one set of interests foremost in mind: those of the great majority of humankind, the propertyless."]
New Left Review [A 160-page journal published every two months from London, New Left Review analyses world politics, the global economy, state powers and protest movements; contemporary social theory, history and philosophy; cinema, literature, heterodox art and aesthetics. It runs a regular book review section and carries interviews, essays, topical comments and signed editorials on political issues of the day."]
Resnick, Stephen. "Econ 305: Marxian Economics." (38 video lectures: 2011)
Schwalbe, Michael. "A Primer on Class Struggle." Common Dreams (March 31, 2011)
Seeing Red Radio (WXOJ: Northampton, MA -- "Seeing Red Radio is a Revolutionary Socialist radio program that covers the headlines from the front-lines of the International class war. Whether from Oaxaca to Amherst, Chicopee to Caracas, Seeing Red Radio chronicles the struggles of workers to free themselves from the oppressions of globalized capitalism. Tune in and arm yourself with the history, culture, and theory that can make a more humane world possible.")
Smith, Martin. The Rise of the Right in Europe." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
Strickland, Ron. "Cultural Theory: Althusser's Concept of Ideology." Marxism 101 (July 16, 2007)
Terrano, Charles. "A Question of Growth." Bluegrass Socialist Party (Septemeber 18, 2011)
Walsh, David. "Why has The Passion of the Christ evoked such a popular response in America?" World Socialist Web Site (March 5, 2004)
We Are Many ("There are so many voices and so many struggles scattered across the planet (and the internet). We are attempting to gather these voices "in unvanquishable number" into a site that can offer a platform and, we hope, inspiration for action. The obstacles activists face today, like those faced by workers and the oppressed in Shelley's day, are great. But our numbers are greater, and with solidarity and unity we can hope to begin to make changes in the systems we oppose. This site cannot be exhaustive, and that is not our intent. We are simply trying to offer a small sampling of the best radical audio and video sources we know of. We know that the internet provides vast opportunities to share information and ideas, but we do not believe that this can replace the real actions of real people. We encourage our visitors, friends, fellow-travelers, and comrades to take inspiration from the people included here into their own struggles for justice. The idea of this website first came from the annual Socialism conferences, packed with so many speakers and discussions and debates and our desire to share these discussions with others on a single platform. We had collected hundreds of talks and meetings over the years, but had never shared them in a coherent way. We hope you find this effort useful.")
Whitehouse, David. "Crisis and Class Struggle in China." We Are Many (June 18, 2009)
Wolff, Richard D. "Austerity Programs." (Video on YouTube: February 25, 2011)
---. "Class Warfare and Economic Analysis." Law and Disorder Radio (April 2011)
---. "The Continuing Economic Crisis." History for the Future (May 31, 2011)
---. "Housing and the Economy." History for the Future (September 14, 2010)
---. "A Tale of Two Lootings." Truthout (August 3, 2011)
Paul le Blanc: What Do Socialists Say About Democracy?
What Do Socialists Say About Democracy?
by Paul le Blanc
International Socialist Review
...
There are additional realities that flow from this, and you don’t have to be a genius like Albert Einstein to figure out what they are. The fact remains, however, that Einstein did discuss the question in 1949 and expressed himself rather well, so let’s see what he had to say:
More recently, Sheldon Wolin, Professor Emeritus of Political Theory at Princeton University, updated some of Einstein’s points. To understand what he says, you need to understand Greek—so I will now give you a Greek language lesson. We got the word “democracy” from the ancient Greeks—demokratia, derived from demos (the people) and kratia (rule). Sheldon Wolin says: “It is obvious that today—in the age of communication conglomerates, media pundits, television, public opinion surveys, and political consultants—the exercise of popular will, the expression of its voice, and the framing of its needs have been emptied of all promise of autonomy.” No kidding! Noting that “American politicians and publicists claim that theirs is the world’s greatest democracy,” Wolin tells us, instead (and remember, “demos” means “the people”): “The reality is a democracy without the demos as actor. The voice is that of a ventriloquist democracy.”17 That is, “we the people” seem to be expressing ourselves politically, but really what is being expressed comes from the wealthy elites and their minions who control the economy, the larger culture, the sources of information, the shaping of opinion, and the political process as a whole.
Many anarchists, quite understandably, denounce the very concept of democracy as a swindle that should be rejected by all honest revolutionaries. Marxists argue, however, that the swindle must be rejected—but democracy should be fought for. It does seem, however, that given the many ways in which the electoral process in the United States is stacked in favor of capitalism and capitalists, a case can be made, at least in the present time, for our efforts to be concentrated outside the electoral arena. Just as politics involves much, much more than elections and electoral parties, so the struggle for democracy—as the comments of Howard Zinn suggest—can often be pursued far more effectively in workplaces, in communities, in schools, in the streets, in the larger culture through non-electoral struggles, and creative work of various kinds. The key for us is to draw more and more people into pathways of thinking and pathways of action that go in the direction of questioning established authority and giving people a meaningful say about the realities and decisions affecting their lives. That is the opposite of how so-called democracy—focused on elections—actually works in our country. This comes through brilliantly in the description of the wonderful anarchist educator Paul Goodman regarding the U.S. political system in the early 1960s:
Elections can sometimes be used effectively by revolutionaries to reach out to masses of people with ideas, information, analyses, and proposals that challenge the established order. If elected, they may also find that—aside from proposing and voting for positive, if relatively modest, social reforms—they will also be able to use elected office to help inform, mobilize, and support their constituents in non-electoral mass struggles. But the insertion of revolutionaries into the existing capitalist state will not be sufficient to bring about the “true democracy” that Marx spoke of, because they would find themselves within political structures designed to maintain the existing power relations. They would not have the power to end capitalist oppression or to transform the capitalist state into a structure permitting actual “rule by the people.” Marx and Engels themselves came to the conclusion that it would not be possible for the working class simply to use the existing state—designed by our exploiters and oppressors—to create a new society. The workers would need to smash the oppressive apparatus in order to allow for a genuinely democratic rule, through their own movements and organizations, and through new and more democratic governmental structures.
It is possible that some revolutionaries might be elected before such revolutionary change restructures the state. But they can be effective in what they actually want to do only by working in tandem with broader social movements and with non-electoral struggles. These movements and struggles must be working to empower masses of people in our economy and society, and to put increasing pressure on all politicians and government figures, and also on capitalist owners and managers, to respond to the needs and the will of the workers, of the oppressed, and of the majority of the people. Remember C. L. R. James’s comment: “To the degree that the [working class] mobilizes itself and the great masses of the people, the socialist revolution is advanced. The [working class] mobilizes itself as a self-acting force through its own committees, unions, parties, and other organizations.” These are, potentially, the seeds of the workers’ democracy—germinating in the present—that will take root and grow, challenging and displacing the undemocratic and corrupted structures associated with the so-called bourgeois democracies.
Democracy and “communism”
Before we conclude, we need to look more closely, even if briefly, at a contradiction that seems to have arisen between the notion of democracy and the realities of what came to be known as Communism. Within the tradition of twentieth-century Communism, many (in sharp contrast to Marx) came to counterpose revolution and communism to democracy as such. This can’t be justified, but it needs to be explained. Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks led a super-democratic upsurge of the laboring masses, resulting in the initial triumph of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Immediately afterward, Russia was overwhelmed by foreign military invasions, economic blockades, and a very bloody civil war nurtured by hostile foreign capitalist powers. In that horrific situation, a brutal one-party dictatorship was established to hold things together. The Bolsheviks (even comrades Lenin and Trotsky) came up with highly dubious theoretical justifications for the dictatorship, which caused Rosa Luxemburg—correctly—to sharply criticize them, even as she supported the Russian Revolution. The justifications they put forward were soon used as an ideological cover for the crystallization of a vicious bureaucratic tyranny propagated, in the name of “Communism,” by Joseph Stalin and others, ultimately miseducating millions of people throughout the world.19
Both Lenin and Trotsky, and also many others who were true to the revolutionary-democratic essence of the Bolshevik tradition, sought to push back this horrendous corruption of the Communist cause. But it was too late, and after the late 1920s such words as Communism, Marxism, and socialism became wrongly identified throughout the world with that horrendous, totalitarian, murderous corruption represented by the Stalin regime. The ideology and practices of Stalinism are close to being the opposite of classical Marxism.
To Read the Entire Essay
by Paul le Blanc
International Socialist Review
...
There are additional realities that flow from this, and you don’t have to be a genius like Albert Einstein to figure out what they are. The fact remains, however, that Einstein did discuss the question in 1949 and expressed himself rather well, so let’s see what he had to say:
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.16
More recently, Sheldon Wolin, Professor Emeritus of Political Theory at Princeton University, updated some of Einstein’s points. To understand what he says, you need to understand Greek—so I will now give you a Greek language lesson. We got the word “democracy” from the ancient Greeks—demokratia, derived from demos (the people) and kratia (rule). Sheldon Wolin says: “It is obvious that today—in the age of communication conglomerates, media pundits, television, public opinion surveys, and political consultants—the exercise of popular will, the expression of its voice, and the framing of its needs have been emptied of all promise of autonomy.” No kidding! Noting that “American politicians and publicists claim that theirs is the world’s greatest democracy,” Wolin tells us, instead (and remember, “demos” means “the people”): “The reality is a democracy without the demos as actor. The voice is that of a ventriloquist democracy.”17 That is, “we the people” seem to be expressing ourselves politically, but really what is being expressed comes from the wealthy elites and their minions who control the economy, the larger culture, the sources of information, the shaping of opinion, and the political process as a whole.
Many anarchists, quite understandably, denounce the very concept of democracy as a swindle that should be rejected by all honest revolutionaries. Marxists argue, however, that the swindle must be rejected—but democracy should be fought for. It does seem, however, that given the many ways in which the electoral process in the United States is stacked in favor of capitalism and capitalists, a case can be made, at least in the present time, for our efforts to be concentrated outside the electoral arena. Just as politics involves much, much more than elections and electoral parties, so the struggle for democracy—as the comments of Howard Zinn suggest—can often be pursued far more effectively in workplaces, in communities, in schools, in the streets, in the larger culture through non-electoral struggles, and creative work of various kinds. The key for us is to draw more and more people into pathways of thinking and pathways of action that go in the direction of questioning established authority and giving people a meaningful say about the realities and decisions affecting their lives. That is the opposite of how so-called democracy—focused on elections—actually works in our country. This comes through brilliantly in the description of the wonderful anarchist educator Paul Goodman regarding the U.S. political system in the early 1960s:
Concretely, our system of government at present comprises the military-industrial complex, the secret paramilitary agencies, the scientific war corporations, the blimps, the horses’ asses, the police, the administrative bureaucracy, the career diplomats, the lobbies, the corporations that contribute Party funds, the underwriters and real-estate promoters that batten on urban renewal, the official press and the official opposition press, the sounding-off and jockeying for the next election, the National Unity, etc., etc. All this machine is grinding along by the momentum of the power and profit motives and style long since built into it; it cannot make decisions of a kind radically different than it does. Even if an excellent man happens to be elected to office, he will find that it is no longer a possible instrument for social change on any major issues of war and peace and the way of life of the Americans.18
Elections can sometimes be used effectively by revolutionaries to reach out to masses of people with ideas, information, analyses, and proposals that challenge the established order. If elected, they may also find that—aside from proposing and voting for positive, if relatively modest, social reforms—they will also be able to use elected office to help inform, mobilize, and support their constituents in non-electoral mass struggles. But the insertion of revolutionaries into the existing capitalist state will not be sufficient to bring about the “true democracy” that Marx spoke of, because they would find themselves within political structures designed to maintain the existing power relations. They would not have the power to end capitalist oppression or to transform the capitalist state into a structure permitting actual “rule by the people.” Marx and Engels themselves came to the conclusion that it would not be possible for the working class simply to use the existing state—designed by our exploiters and oppressors—to create a new society. The workers would need to smash the oppressive apparatus in order to allow for a genuinely democratic rule, through their own movements and organizations, and through new and more democratic governmental structures.
It is possible that some revolutionaries might be elected before such revolutionary change restructures the state. But they can be effective in what they actually want to do only by working in tandem with broader social movements and with non-electoral struggles. These movements and struggles must be working to empower masses of people in our economy and society, and to put increasing pressure on all politicians and government figures, and also on capitalist owners and managers, to respond to the needs and the will of the workers, of the oppressed, and of the majority of the people. Remember C. L. R. James’s comment: “To the degree that the [working class] mobilizes itself and the great masses of the people, the socialist revolution is advanced. The [working class] mobilizes itself as a self-acting force through its own committees, unions, parties, and other organizations.” These are, potentially, the seeds of the workers’ democracy—germinating in the present—that will take root and grow, challenging and displacing the undemocratic and corrupted structures associated with the so-called bourgeois democracies.
Democracy and “communism”
Before we conclude, we need to look more closely, even if briefly, at a contradiction that seems to have arisen between the notion of democracy and the realities of what came to be known as Communism. Within the tradition of twentieth-century Communism, many (in sharp contrast to Marx) came to counterpose revolution and communism to democracy as such. This can’t be justified, but it needs to be explained. Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks led a super-democratic upsurge of the laboring masses, resulting in the initial triumph of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Immediately afterward, Russia was overwhelmed by foreign military invasions, economic blockades, and a very bloody civil war nurtured by hostile foreign capitalist powers. In that horrific situation, a brutal one-party dictatorship was established to hold things together. The Bolsheviks (even comrades Lenin and Trotsky) came up with highly dubious theoretical justifications for the dictatorship, which caused Rosa Luxemburg—correctly—to sharply criticize them, even as she supported the Russian Revolution. The justifications they put forward were soon used as an ideological cover for the crystallization of a vicious bureaucratic tyranny propagated, in the name of “Communism,” by Joseph Stalin and others, ultimately miseducating millions of people throughout the world.19
Both Lenin and Trotsky, and also many others who were true to the revolutionary-democratic essence of the Bolshevik tradition, sought to push back this horrendous corruption of the Communist cause. But it was too late, and after the late 1920s such words as Communism, Marxism, and socialism became wrongly identified throughout the world with that horrendous, totalitarian, murderous corruption represented by the Stalin regime. The ideology and practices of Stalinism are close to being the opposite of classical Marxism.
To Read the Entire Essay
Sharif Abdel Kouddous: Live From Egypt -- The Rebellion Grows Stronger
[This is a report from Sunday, Democracy Now is providing live streaming of reports from Egypt. The UK Guardian is also providing some excellent live updates in the format of a streaming timeline: "Egypt protests - live updates"]
Live From Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger
By Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Democracy Now
Cairo, Egypt—In the second day of defiance of a military curfew, more than 150,000 protesters packed into Tahrir Square Sunday to call on President Hosni Mubarak to step down. The mood was celebratory and victorious. For most, it was not a question of if, but when, Mubarak would leave.
Military tanks have been stationed at entrance points around the square with soldiers forming barricades across streets and alleyways. In another departure from ordinary Cairo life, people quickly formed orderly queues to get through the army checkpoints. Soldiers frisked people and checked their identification cards. One soldier said they were making sure no one with police or state security credentials could enter.
Reports are widespread that many of the looters in Cairo are, in fact, remnants of the police and state security forces that were forced into a full retreat during Friday’s mass street revolt. In addition, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners were released from prisons in Fayyoum and Tora. Many believe it’s all part of an organized campaign by the regime to create lawlessness in the city in a last gasp attempt to maintain its grip on power. The headline of Al-Masry Al-Youm today blared: "Conspiracy by Interior Ministry to Foment Chaos."
But those concerns largely evaporate inside Tahrir Square where a blossoming of mass public political expression is taking place. Never before during Mubarak’s reign have so many gathered in one place in popular protest. Tens of thousands of people clapped in unison and chanted slogans ranging from the serious and patriotic to humorous rhymes filled with biting wit. Many had spent the night in the square and scores planned to stay longer.
A helicopter hovered overhead and two military fighter jets made repeated flybys, coming in at a lower altitude each time until the noise became deafening. Whatever the intended message, the crowd was not intimidated. They cheered, held up victory signs and waved in defiance. After emerging victorious in Friday’s battle with the interior ministry’s forces, there is little that can quell the enthusiasm of the Egyptian people or their full-throated call for change.
Mubarak’s attempt to placate the mass uprising by naming two of his top party officials, Omar Suleiman, the country’s infamous intelligence chief, as his first Vice President and Ahmed Shafik, a former Air Force commander, as Prime Minister have been met with strong opposition amongst the protesters.
"Omar Suleiman is not an option. The people are chanting against him today," said Nazly Hussein, a 30 year-old protester in Tahrir. "People want to bring down the system...I don’t think anyone is going home until the president and everyone around him leaves."
Mohamed El Baradei–the Nobel Peace laureate and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency–arrived in Tahrir Square today to address the crowds. Baradei’s reputation is beyond reproach and he commands respect amongst most Egyptians but many say he has lived outside of the country for too long and criticize him for not taking part in earlier street protests. Nevertheless, some are calling on him to be included in some type of transitional government.
The one unifying theme, however, remains Mubarak. Everyone wants him out and it is difficult to imagine what iota of support he holds in any segment of Egyptian society save for his very small inner circle. And so, the people wait. It turns out six days of revolt will not be enough to overturn thirty years in power. But patience is wearing thin.
One man who is sure Mubarak’s time is up is my uncle Mohamed Abd El Qudoos [Arabic is phonetic and the English spelling of our last name varies within the family]. A leading opposition protester, Mohamed is the head of the Freedom Committee in the Press Syndicate, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. He has been arrested countless times over the years by police and state security forces for leading small-scale demonstrations. Last week he was arrested on Tuesday and then arrested again during Friday’s uprising. A picture of him being dragged away by plainclothes police was shown on international news outlets across the globe. He was eventually released and able to join Saturday’s protests. In Tahrir Square Sunday, dozens of people came to pay tribute to his struggle. They shook his hand, kissed him hello and took pictures with him.
"This is a dream come true," Mohamed said, sitting in the middle of the packed square in his standard attire: suit, flag and megaphone. "Remember when I would stand on the steps of the press syndicate to protest? I would stand alone. Now look at everyone. They are all here."
Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a senior producer for the radio/TV show Democracy Now.
Link
Live From Egypt: The Rebellion Grows Stronger
By Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Democracy Now
Cairo, Egypt—In the second day of defiance of a military curfew, more than 150,000 protesters packed into Tahrir Square Sunday to call on President Hosni Mubarak to step down. The mood was celebratory and victorious. For most, it was not a question of if, but when, Mubarak would leave.
Military tanks have been stationed at entrance points around the square with soldiers forming barricades across streets and alleyways. In another departure from ordinary Cairo life, people quickly formed orderly queues to get through the army checkpoints. Soldiers frisked people and checked their identification cards. One soldier said they were making sure no one with police or state security credentials could enter.
Reports are widespread that many of the looters in Cairo are, in fact, remnants of the police and state security forces that were forced into a full retreat during Friday’s mass street revolt. In addition, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners were released from prisons in Fayyoum and Tora. Many believe it’s all part of an organized campaign by the regime to create lawlessness in the city in a last gasp attempt to maintain its grip on power. The headline of Al-Masry Al-Youm today blared: "Conspiracy by Interior Ministry to Foment Chaos."
But those concerns largely evaporate inside Tahrir Square where a blossoming of mass public political expression is taking place. Never before during Mubarak’s reign have so many gathered in one place in popular protest. Tens of thousands of people clapped in unison and chanted slogans ranging from the serious and patriotic to humorous rhymes filled with biting wit. Many had spent the night in the square and scores planned to stay longer.
A helicopter hovered overhead and two military fighter jets made repeated flybys, coming in at a lower altitude each time until the noise became deafening. Whatever the intended message, the crowd was not intimidated. They cheered, held up victory signs and waved in defiance. After emerging victorious in Friday’s battle with the interior ministry’s forces, there is little that can quell the enthusiasm of the Egyptian people or their full-throated call for change.
Mubarak’s attempt to placate the mass uprising by naming two of his top party officials, Omar Suleiman, the country’s infamous intelligence chief, as his first Vice President and Ahmed Shafik, a former Air Force commander, as Prime Minister have been met with strong opposition amongst the protesters.
"Omar Suleiman is not an option. The people are chanting against him today," said Nazly Hussein, a 30 year-old protester in Tahrir. "People want to bring down the system...I don’t think anyone is going home until the president and everyone around him leaves."
Mohamed El Baradei–the Nobel Peace laureate and former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency–arrived in Tahrir Square today to address the crowds. Baradei’s reputation is beyond reproach and he commands respect amongst most Egyptians but many say he has lived outside of the country for too long and criticize him for not taking part in earlier street protests. Nevertheless, some are calling on him to be included in some type of transitional government.
The one unifying theme, however, remains Mubarak. Everyone wants him out and it is difficult to imagine what iota of support he holds in any segment of Egyptian society save for his very small inner circle. And so, the people wait. It turns out six days of revolt will not be enough to overturn thirty years in power. But patience is wearing thin.
One man who is sure Mubarak’s time is up is my uncle Mohamed Abd El Qudoos [Arabic is phonetic and the English spelling of our last name varies within the family]. A leading opposition protester, Mohamed is the head of the Freedom Committee in the Press Syndicate, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. He has been arrested countless times over the years by police and state security forces for leading small-scale demonstrations. Last week he was arrested on Tuesday and then arrested again during Friday’s uprising. A picture of him being dragged away by plainclothes police was shown on international news outlets across the globe. He was eventually released and able to join Saturday’s protests. In Tahrir Square Sunday, dozens of people came to pay tribute to his struggle. They shook his hand, kissed him hello and took pictures with him.
"This is a dream come true," Mohamed said, sitting in the middle of the packed square in his standard attire: suit, flag and megaphone. "Remember when I would stand on the steps of the press syndicate to protest? I would stand alone. Now look at everyone. They are all here."
Sharif Abdel Kouddous is a senior producer for the radio/TV show Democracy Now.
Link
Cornel West on Charles Rangel, Bush & Kanye West, and Why Obama Administration "Seems to Have Very Little Concern for Poor People"
Cornel West on Charles Rangel, Bush & Kanye West, and Why Obama Admin "Seems to Have Very Little Concern for Poor People"
Democracy Now
Princeton University professor and author Cornel West join us to talk about Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) being censured for ethics violations, President George W. Bush saying the worst moment of his presidency was when Kanye West called him a racist, and President Obama’s policies toward the poor. "The Obama administration seems to have very little concern for poor people and their social misery," West said.
To Listen to the Episode
Democracy Now
Princeton University professor and author Cornel West join us to talk about Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) being censured for ethics violations, President George W. Bush saying the worst moment of his presidency was when Kanye West called him a racist, and President Obama’s policies toward the poor. "The Obama administration seems to have very little concern for poor people and their social misery," West said.
To Listen to the Episode
Friday, January 28, 2011
Timothy Karr: One U.S. Corporation's Role in Egypt's Brutal Crackdown
(via Literaghost)
One U.S. Corporation's Role in Egypt's Brutal Crackdown
by Timothy Karr
Huffington Post
The open Internet's role in popular uprising is now undisputed. Look no further than Egypt, where the Mubarak regime today reportedly shut down Internet and cell phone communications -- a troubling predictor of the fierce crackdown that has followed.
What's even more troubling is news that one American company is aiding Egypt's harsh response through sales of technology that makes this repression possible.
The Internet's favorite offspring -- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- are now heralded on CNN, BBC and Fox News as flag-bearers for a new era of citizen journalism and activism. (More and more these same news organizations have abandoned their own, more traditional means of newsgathering to troll social media for breaking information.)
But the open Internet's power cuts both ways: The tools that connect, organize and empower protesters can also be used to hunt them down.
Telecom Egypt, the nation's dominant phone and Internet service provider, is a state-run enterprise, which made it easy on Friday morning for authorities to pull the plug and plunge much of the nation into digital darkness.
Moreover, Egypt also has the ability to spy on Internet and cell phone users, by opening their communication packets and reading their contents. Iran used similar methods during the 2009 unrest to track, imprison and in some cases, "disappear" truckloads of cyber-dissidents.
The companies that profit from sales of this technology need to be held to a higher standard. One in particular is an American firm, Narus of Sunnyvale, Calif., which has sold Telecom Egypt "real-time traffic intelligence" equipment.
Narus, now owned by Boeing, was founded in 1997 by Israeli security experts to create and sell mass surveillance systems for governments and large corporate clients.
To Read the Rest of the Article
One U.S. Corporation's Role in Egypt's Brutal Crackdown
by Timothy Karr
Huffington Post
The open Internet's role in popular uprising is now undisputed. Look no further than Egypt, where the Mubarak regime today reportedly shut down Internet and cell phone communications -- a troubling predictor of the fierce crackdown that has followed.
What's even more troubling is news that one American company is aiding Egypt's harsh response through sales of technology that makes this repression possible.
The Internet's favorite offspring -- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- are now heralded on CNN, BBC and Fox News as flag-bearers for a new era of citizen journalism and activism. (More and more these same news organizations have abandoned their own, more traditional means of newsgathering to troll social media for breaking information.)
But the open Internet's power cuts both ways: The tools that connect, organize and empower protesters can also be used to hunt them down.
Telecom Egypt, the nation's dominant phone and Internet service provider, is a state-run enterprise, which made it easy on Friday morning for authorities to pull the plug and plunge much of the nation into digital darkness.
Moreover, Egypt also has the ability to spy on Internet and cell phone users, by opening their communication packets and reading their contents. Iran used similar methods during the 2009 unrest to track, imprison and in some cases, "disappear" truckloads of cyber-dissidents.
The companies that profit from sales of this technology need to be held to a higher standard. One in particular is an American firm, Narus of Sunnyvale, Calif., which has sold Telecom Egypt "real-time traffic intelligence" equipment.
Narus, now owned by Boeing, was founded in 1997 by Israeli security experts to create and sell mass surveillance systems for governments and large corporate clients.
To Read the Rest of the Article
Henry Giroux: Howard Zinn, A Public Intellectual Who Mattered
[Howard Zinn died a year ago on January 27th. Giroux's essay below is a good testament to his continuing importance. Our remembrance from last year: "So long Howard Zinn. It’s been good to know ya"]
Howard Zinn, A Public Intellectual Who Mattered
by Henry Giroux
TruthOut
In 1977 I took my first job in higher education at Boston University. One reason I went there was because Howard Zinn was teaching there at the time. As a high school teacher, Howard's book, "Vietnam: the Logic of Withdrawal," published in 1968, had a profound effect on me. Not only was it infused with a passion and sense of commitment that I admired as a high school teacher and tried to internalize as part of my own pedagogy, but it captured something about the passion, sense of commitment and respect for solidarity that came out of Howard's working-class background. It offered me a language, history and politics that allowed me to engage critically and articulate my opposition to the war that was raging at the time.
I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and rarely met or read any working-class intellectuals. After reading James Baldwin, hearing William Kunstler and Stanley Aronowitz give talks, I caught a glimpse of what it meant to occupy such a fragile, contradictory and often scorned location. But reading Howard gave me the theoretical tools to understand more clearly how the mix of biography, cultural capital and class location could be finely honed into a viable and laudable politics.
Later, as I got to know Howard personally, I was able to fill in the details about his working-class background and his intellectual development. We had grown up in similar neighborhoods, shared a similar cultural capital and we both probably learned more from the streets than we had ever learned in formal schooling. There was something about Howard's fearlessness, his courage, his willingness to risk not just his academic position, but also his life, that marked him as special - untainted by the often corrupting privileges of class entitlement.
Before I arrived in Boston to begin teaching at Boston University, Howard was a mythic figure for me and I was anxious to meet him in real life. How I first encountered him was perfectly suited to the myth. While walking to my first class, as I was nearing the university, filled with the trepidation of teaching a classroom of students, I caught my first glimpse of Howard. He was standing on a box with a bullhorn in front of the Martin Luther King memorial giving a talk calling for opposition to Silber's attempt to undermine any democratic or progressive function of the university. The image so perfectly matched my own understanding of Howard that I remember thinking to myself, this has to be the perfect introduction to such a heroic figure.
Soon afterwards, I wrote him a note and rather sheepishly asked if we could meet. He got back to me in a day; we went out to lunch soon afterwards, and a friendship developed that lasted over 30 years. While teaching at Boston University, I often accompanied Howard when he went to high schools to talk about his published work or his plays. I sat in on many of his lectures and even taught one of his graduate courses. He loved talking to students and they were equally attracted to him. His pedagogy was dynamic, directive, focused, laced with humor and always open to dialog and interpretation. He was a magnificent teacher, who shredded all notions of the classroom as a place that was as uninteresting as it was often irrelevant to larger social concerns. He urged his students not just to learn from history, but to use it as a resource to sharpen their intellectual prowess and hone their civic responsibilities.
Howard refused to separate what he taught in the university classroom, or any forum for that matter, from the most important problems and issues facing the larger society. But he never demanded that students follow his own actions; he simply provided a model of what a combination of knowledge, teaching and social commitment meant. Central to Howard's pedagogy was the belief that teaching students how to critically understand a text or any other form of knowledge was not enough. They also had to engage such knowledge as part of a broader engagement with matters of civic agency and social responsibility. How they did that was up to them, but, most importantly, they had to link what they learned to a self-reflective understanding of their own responsibility as engaged individuals and social actors.
He offered students a range of options. He wasn't interested in molding students in the manner of Pygmalion, but in giving them the widest possible set of choices and knowledge necessary for them to view what they learned as an act of freedom and empowerment. There is a certain poetry in his pedagogical style and scholarship and it is captured in his belief that one can take a position without standing still. He captured this sentiment well in a comment he made in his autobiography, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train." He wrote:
In fact, Howard was under constant attack by John Silber, then president of Boston University, because of his scholarship and teaching. One expression of that attack took the form of freezing Howard's salary for years.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Howard Zinn, A Public Intellectual Who Mattered
by Henry Giroux
TruthOut
In 1977 I took my first job in higher education at Boston University. One reason I went there was because Howard Zinn was teaching there at the time. As a high school teacher, Howard's book, "Vietnam: the Logic of Withdrawal," published in 1968, had a profound effect on me. Not only was it infused with a passion and sense of commitment that I admired as a high school teacher and tried to internalize as part of my own pedagogy, but it captured something about the passion, sense of commitment and respect for solidarity that came out of Howard's working-class background. It offered me a language, history and politics that allowed me to engage critically and articulate my opposition to the war that was raging at the time.
I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and rarely met or read any working-class intellectuals. After reading James Baldwin, hearing William Kunstler and Stanley Aronowitz give talks, I caught a glimpse of what it meant to occupy such a fragile, contradictory and often scorned location. But reading Howard gave me the theoretical tools to understand more clearly how the mix of biography, cultural capital and class location could be finely honed into a viable and laudable politics.
Later, as I got to know Howard personally, I was able to fill in the details about his working-class background and his intellectual development. We had grown up in similar neighborhoods, shared a similar cultural capital and we both probably learned more from the streets than we had ever learned in formal schooling. There was something about Howard's fearlessness, his courage, his willingness to risk not just his academic position, but also his life, that marked him as special - untainted by the often corrupting privileges of class entitlement.
Before I arrived in Boston to begin teaching at Boston University, Howard was a mythic figure for me and I was anxious to meet him in real life. How I first encountered him was perfectly suited to the myth. While walking to my first class, as I was nearing the university, filled with the trepidation of teaching a classroom of students, I caught my first glimpse of Howard. He was standing on a box with a bullhorn in front of the Martin Luther King memorial giving a talk calling for opposition to Silber's attempt to undermine any democratic or progressive function of the university. The image so perfectly matched my own understanding of Howard that I remember thinking to myself, this has to be the perfect introduction to such a heroic figure.
Soon afterwards, I wrote him a note and rather sheepishly asked if we could meet. He got back to me in a day; we went out to lunch soon afterwards, and a friendship developed that lasted over 30 years. While teaching at Boston University, I often accompanied Howard when he went to high schools to talk about his published work or his plays. I sat in on many of his lectures and even taught one of his graduate courses. He loved talking to students and they were equally attracted to him. His pedagogy was dynamic, directive, focused, laced with humor and always open to dialog and interpretation. He was a magnificent teacher, who shredded all notions of the classroom as a place that was as uninteresting as it was often irrelevant to larger social concerns. He urged his students not just to learn from history, but to use it as a resource to sharpen their intellectual prowess and hone their civic responsibilities.
Howard refused to separate what he taught in the university classroom, or any forum for that matter, from the most important problems and issues facing the larger society. But he never demanded that students follow his own actions; he simply provided a model of what a combination of knowledge, teaching and social commitment meant. Central to Howard's pedagogy was the belief that teaching students how to critically understand a text or any other form of knowledge was not enough. They also had to engage such knowledge as part of a broader engagement with matters of civic agency and social responsibility. How they did that was up to them, but, most importantly, they had to link what they learned to a self-reflective understanding of their own responsibility as engaged individuals and social actors.
He offered students a range of options. He wasn't interested in molding students in the manner of Pygmalion, but in giving them the widest possible set of choices and knowledge necessary for them to view what they learned as an act of freedom and empowerment. There is a certain poetry in his pedagogical style and scholarship and it is captured in his belief that one can take a position without standing still. He captured this sentiment well in a comment he made in his autobiography, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train." He wrote:
From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than 'objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.
In fact, Howard was under constant attack by John Silber, then president of Boston University, because of his scholarship and teaching. One expression of that attack took the form of freezing Howard's salary for years.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Global Voices: Egypt Protests 2011
Egypt Protests 2011
Global Voices
Inspired by the Tunisian uprising that overthrew longtime president Ben Ali, Egyptian citizens and activists organized mass protests on January 25 calling for economic reform and an end to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. Expectations ran high, and so did public tension as thousands demonstrated in Cairo and other cities, as well as in front of Egyptian embassies abroad. On January 25, Twitter was blocked and mobile phones were cut off, but news of arrests and police repression still circulated online (hashtag #Jan25). Early on January 28, however, the Internet was widely cut off throughout Egypt, shortly before the day's protests were to begin.
At least two protesters and one security officer have died, and many more are reported injured by tear gas and in clashes with police.
January 25 is a public holiday in Egypt marking the anniversary of a 1952 incident when the Egyptian police stood by the people in resistance against the British occupation.
To Access the Archive of Citizen Media Reports, Photos and Videos
Global Voices
Inspired by the Tunisian uprising that overthrew longtime president Ben Ali, Egyptian citizens and activists organized mass protests on January 25 calling for economic reform and an end to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule. Expectations ran high, and so did public tension as thousands demonstrated in Cairo and other cities, as well as in front of Egyptian embassies abroad. On January 25, Twitter was blocked and mobile phones were cut off, but news of arrests and police repression still circulated online (hashtag #Jan25). Early on January 28, however, the Internet was widely cut off throughout Egypt, shortly before the day's protests were to begin.
At least two protesters and one security officer have died, and many more are reported injured by tear gas and in clashes with police.
January 25 is a public holiday in Egypt marking the anniversary of a 1952 incident when the Egyptian police stood by the people in resistance against the British occupation.
To Access the Archive of Citizen Media Reports, Photos and Videos
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Creative Screenwriting Magazine: Co-writer/Director Matteo Garrone and Co-writer Maurizio Braucci on Gomorrah
Gomorrah Q&A;
Creative Screenwriting Magazine
Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writer/director Matteo Garrone and co-writer Maurizio Braucci about Gomorrah
To Listen to the Interview
Creative Screenwriting Magazine
Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writer/director Matteo Garrone and co-writer Maurizio Braucci about Gomorrah
To Listen to the Interview
HUM 221: Anarchism
(Under Construction)
The Great Chain of Being (All the previous ideologies we have studied subscribed to "proper" hierarchies -- what challenge does anarchism provide to the notion of natural and/or god-given hierarchies)
Some introductions to contemporary Anarchism:
AK Press: What Do You Mean by "Anarchism." [More at AK Press and Revolution by the Book)
Crimethinc: Fighting For Our Lives -- An Anarchist Primer [More at Crimethinc]
Noam Chomsky: The Relevance of Anarcho-Syndicalism
Michael Benton: On Anarchism
The Great Chain of Being (All the previous ideologies we have studied subscribed to "proper" hierarchies -- what challenge does anarchism provide to the notion of natural and/or god-given hierarchies)
Some introductions to contemporary Anarchism:
AK Press: What Do You Mean by "Anarchism." [More at AK Press and Revolution by the Book)
Crimethinc: Fighting For Our Lives -- An Anarchist Primer [More at Crimethinc]
Noam Chomsky: The Relevance of Anarcho-Syndicalism
Michael Benton: On Anarchism
HUM 221: Socialism Reading
(Under construction)
Probably the best site for researching Marxist histories, theories and concepts: Marxists Internet Archive
For an introduction to the wide range of actually existing socialist economics ignored in Nancy Love's chapter, check out the only magazine I am currently subscribing to Monthly Review
"The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners."
--Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
"Which Side Are You On" by The Dropkick Murphys
The People Speak (2009 documentary commemorating Howard Zinn's landmark history book A People's History of the United States and its companion volume Voices of a People's History of the United States)
Bill Moyers states:
The British political philosopher Edmund Burke, cited as a major influence for conservatives and liberals, is revered for his attacks on The French Revolution. Socialists would make the case that he is willfully ignoring the historical violence that led to the revolution and is hypocritical in celebrating the "Glorious Revolution of 1688" as a more "civilized" means for addressing injustice. Here is Julien Bell at the 2010 Socialist Forum providing a different perspective on the cause and effects of The French Revolution:
Julien Bell's "A People's History of the French Revolution" (audio)
So the beginning question in the reading that Nancy S. Love throws out for us "Is Socialism dead?" What do you think? Why or why not?
Nancy S. Love provides us with an incomplete, awkward and hazy introduction to Socialism, but to be fair, and she remarks upon this, it is a vast history that is difficult to summarize in a small chapter. Unfortunately, she compounds the mess of a chapter by not updating it for the 2nd edition to cover Latin American socialist movements and other current resistance movements which would have given a different understanding of Socialism's potential and its current relevance for our times:
The Take (Canada/Argentina: Avi Lewis, 2004)
South of the Border (USA: Oliver Stone, 2009)
"There's a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn't know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nestor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raul Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the exciting transformations in the region."
Not to mention vibrant economic and environmental struggles in the global south:
Blue Gold: World Water Wars (USA: Sam Bozzo, 2008)
[Includes Bolivian resistance to colonialization/privatization of their water resources)
Crude (USA: Joe Berlinger, 2009)
The End of Poverty (USA: Philippe Diaz, 2008)
and increasingly in the USA
Inside Job (USA: Charles Ferguson, 2010)
--Friedrich Engels in a letter to an American friend in 1893
Probably the best site for researching Marxist histories, theories and concepts: Marxists Internet Archive
For an introduction to the wide range of actually existing socialist economics ignored in Nancy Love's chapter, check out the only magazine I am currently subscribing to Monthly Review
"The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners."
--Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
"Which Side Are You On" by The Dropkick Murphys
The People Speak (2009 documentary commemorating Howard Zinn's landmark history book A People's History of the United States and its companion volume Voices of a People's History of the United States)
Bill Moyers states:
There's a long tradition in America of people power, and no one has done more to document it than the historian, Howard Zinn. Listen to this paragraph from his most famous book. Quote: "If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed." This son of a working class family got a job in the Brooklyn shipyards and then flew as a bombardier during World War II. He went to NYU on the G.I. Bill, taught history at Spellman College in Atlanta, where he was first active in the Civil Rights movement, and then became a professor of political science at Boston University.
There, he and his students sought a more down-to-earth way of looking at American history. And when no book could provide it, Zinn decided to write one. Since his publication in 1980, "A People's History of the United States" has sold more than two million copies.
The British political philosopher Edmund Burke, cited as a major influence for conservatives and liberals, is revered for his attacks on The French Revolution. Socialists would make the case that he is willfully ignoring the historical violence that led to the revolution and is hypocritical in celebrating the "Glorious Revolution of 1688" as a more "civilized" means for addressing injustice. Here is Julien Bell at the 2010 Socialist Forum providing a different perspective on the cause and effects of The French Revolution:
Julien Bell's "A People's History of the French Revolution" (audio)
So the beginning question in the reading that Nancy S. Love throws out for us "Is Socialism dead?" What do you think? Why or why not?
Nancy S. Love provides us with an incomplete, awkward and hazy introduction to Socialism, but to be fair, and she remarks upon this, it is a vast history that is difficult to summarize in a small chapter. Unfortunately, she compounds the mess of a chapter by not updating it for the 2nd edition to cover Latin American socialist movements and other current resistance movements which would have given a different understanding of Socialism's potential and its current relevance for our times:
The Take (Canada/Argentina: Avi Lewis, 2004)
South of the Border (USA: Oliver Stone, 2009)
"There's a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn't know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nestor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raul Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the exciting transformations in the region."
Not to mention vibrant economic and environmental struggles in the global south:
Blue Gold: World Water Wars (USA: Sam Bozzo, 2008)
[Includes Bolivian resistance to colonialization/privatization of their water resources)
Crude (USA: Joe Berlinger, 2009)
The End of Poverty (USA: Philippe Diaz, 2008)
and increasingly in the USA
Inside Job (USA: Charles Ferguson, 2010)
The Americans for a long time have been providing the European world with the proof that the bourgeois republic is the republic of capitalist businessmen in which politics is business like any other.
--Friedrich Engels in a letter to an American friend in 1893
Creative Screenwriting Magazine: Joel & Ethan Coen - True Grit Q&A;
Joel & Ethan Coen - True Grit Q&A;
Creative Screenwriting Magazine
Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writers and co-directors Joel and Ethan Coen about True Grit
To Listen to the Interview
Creative Screenwriting Magazine
Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writers and co-directors Joel and Ethan Coen about True Grit
To Listen to the Interview
Noam Chomsky: Activism, Anarchism and Power
Noam Chomsky -- Activism, Anarchism, and Power
Conversations with History
On this edition of Conversations with History, UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler is joined by linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky to discuss activism, anarchism and the role the United States plays in the world today.
To Watch the Conversation
Conversations with History
On this edition of Conversations with History, UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler is joined by linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky to discuss activism, anarchism and the role the United States plays in the world today.
To Watch the Conversation
Social Movements: Peace and Conflict Studies Archive
Ames, Mark. "How UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Brought Oppression Back To Greece's Universities." The Smirking Chimp (November 23, 2011)
Anarkismo ["Anarkismo.net is the product of international co-operation between anarchist organizations and individuals ... . It is intended to further communication, discussion and debate within the global anarchist movement. Our intention is to build this site into a resource that is truly global and multilingual. ... Anarchism will be created by the class struggle between the vast majority of society (the working class) and the tiny minority that currently rule. A successful revolution will require that anarchist ideas become the leading ideas within the working class. This will not happen spontaneously. Our role is to make anarchist ideas the leading ideas or, as it is sometimes expressed, to become a "leadership of ideas". A major focus of our activity is our work within the economic organizations of the working class (labour organizations, trade unions, syndicates) where this is a possibility. We therefore reject views that dismiss activity in the unions because as members of the working class it is only natural that we should also be members of these mass organizations. Within them we fight for the democratic structures typical of anarcho-syndicalist unions like the 1930's CNT. However, the unions no matter how revolutionary cannot replace the need for anarchist political organisation(s). We also see it as vital to work in struggles that happen outside the unions and the workplace. These include struggles against particular oppressions, imperialism and indeed the struggles of the working class for a decent place and environment in which to live. Our general approach to these, like our approach to the unions, is to involve ourselves with mass movements and within these movements, in order to promote anarchist methods of organisation involving direct democracy and direct action. We actively oppose all manifestations of prejudice within the workers' movement and society in general and we work alongside those struggling against racism, sexism, [religious] sectarianism and homophobia as a priority. We see the success of a revolution and the successful elimination of these oppressions after the revolution being determined by the building of such struggles in the pre-revolutionary period. The methods of struggle that we promote are a preparation for the running of society along anarchist and communist lines after the revolution. We oppose imperialism but put forward anarchism as an alternative goal to nationalism. We defend grassroots anti-imperialist movements while arguing for an anarchist rather than nationalist strategy. We recognise a need for anarchist organisations who agree with these principles to federate on an international basis. However, we believe the degree of federation possible and the amount of effort put into it must be determined by success at building national or regional organisations capable of making such international work a reality, rather than a matter of slogans."]
Anonymous. "Anonymous and the global correction: A loosely organised group of hackers has been targeting oppressive regimes and has said this is just the beginning." Al Jazeera (February 16, 2011)
Baggins, Brian. "The Black Panther Party." Marxist Internet Archive (Archive: 2002)
"Bahrain: Below the Radar." Listening Post (April 23, 2011)
Bailey, Kenneth. "Who Shall Occupy Make Demands Of?: The Modern Case of the One-Eyed Monster." Groundswell (November 4, 2011)
"The Bamako Appeal." Monthly Review (February 13, 2006)
Benton, Michael. "A nation starts to mobilize: Something’s happening here." North of Center (October 12, 2011)
"Black Panther Party in Their Own Words." Seeing Red Radio (May 29, 2008)
"The Black Power Mixtape–Danny Glover Discusses New Doc Featuring Rare Archival Footage of Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael." Democracy Now (January 24, 2011)
Boykoff, Jules and Kristian Williams. "Police Power and the Suppression of Dissent." Writers Talking (February 24, 2009)
Canning, Doyle and Patrick Reinsborough. "Changing the Story: Story-Based Strategies for Direct Action Design." In the Middle of a Whirlwind (2008)
Chiu, Joanna. "SlutWalk: Does The Media Make the Message?" WIMNs Voices (May 26, 2011)
Chomsky, Noam. “This is the Most Remarkable Regional Uprising that I Can Remember” Democracy Now (February 2, 2011)
Claiborne, Shane. A Monastic Revolution On Being (July 1, 2010)
Clausen, Amy. "Women and Skepticism" The F Word (December 17, 2009)
Coleman, Gabriella. "What It's Like to Participate in Anonymous' Actions." The Atlantic (December 10, 2010)
Coleman, Gabriella, Rich Fein and X. "Hacktivism’s Global Reach, From Targeting Scientology to Backing WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring." Democracy Now (August 16, 2011)
The Coming Insurrection Another World is Possible (Originally Published December 2008: this is a 4 part audio version available online).
"Consensus Decision Making (Direct Democracy @ Occupy Wall Street) (Video: November 2011)
Costa, Amanda Lin. "A Story of the Earth Liberation Front: An Interview With Documentarian Marshall Curry." Truthout (July 21, 2011)
Crawshaw, Steve and John Jackson. "10 Everyday Acts of Resistance That Changed the World: V?clav Havel called it 'the power of the powerless.' How regular people, from Denmark to Liberia, have stood up to power—and won." Yes! (April 1, 2011)
CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective ["Greetings, dissident. History is not something that happens to people—it is the activity of people. In every moment, in every decision and gesture, we make our culture, our life stories, our world, whether we take responsibility for this ourselves or ascribe this power to executives, politicians, pop stars, economic systems, or deities. In a society which glorifies their power and our passivity, all thought which challenges this passivity is thoughtcrime. Crimethink is the transgression without which freedom and self-determination are impossible—it is the skeleton key that unlocks the prisons of our age. CrimethInc. is the black market where we trade in this precious contraband. Here, the secret worlds of shoplifters, rioters, dropouts, deserters, adulterers, vandals, daydreamers—that is to say, of all of us, in those moments when, wanting more, we indulge in little revolts—converge to form gateways to new worlds where theft, cheating, warfare, boredom, and so on are simply obsolete. This webpage is one of many manifestations of the underground network through which we work to realize these daydreams, to take the reins of our lives and make our history rather than using the same energy to insist we are being made by it. If you have illicit ideas and intentions of your own to share, you're invited to join us here."]
"Communiqu? from an Absent Future." We Want Everything (September 24, 2009)
Curry, Marshall, Andrew Stepanian, and Will Potter. "“If a Tree Falls”: New Documentary on Daniel McGowan, Earth Liberation Front and Green Scare." Democracy Now (June 21, 2011)
"Declaration of the Occupation of New York City." New York General Assembly (September 30, 2011)
"Disguised Member of Hacktivist Group "Anonymous" Defends Retaliatory Action Against BART." Democracy Now (August 16, 2011)
"Fighting in the New Terrain: What's Changed Since the 20th Century." CrimethInc. (2010)
Franklin, Sarah. "Transbiology: A Feminist Cultural Account of Being After IVF." Scholar and Feminist Online 9.1/9.2 (Fall 2010 - Spring 2011)
"The Freedom Riders: New Documentary Recounts Historic 1961 Effort to Challenge Segregated Bus System in the Deep South." Democracy Now (February 1, 2010)
"Global Days of Rage." Democracy Now (October 17, 2011)
Goodman, Amy and Chris Hedges. "A Discussion About Occupy Wall St." The Charlie Rose Show (November 3, 2011)
Gosztola, Kevin and Dorian Warren. "Occupy Wall Street Emerges as “First Populist Movement” on the Left Since the 1930s." Democracy Now (October 10, 2011)
Graeber, David. "Occupy and anarchism's gift of democracy." (November 15, 2011)
---. "Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots: The 'Occupy' movement is one of several in American history to be based on anarchist principles." Al Jazeera (November 30, 2011)
Green, James. "Death in the Haymarket." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
"Guide to Anti-War Websites." Guardian (2010)
Haney, Bill and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. "The Fight over Coal Mining is a “Fight About Democracy”: New Documentary with Robert Kennedy, Jr. Chronicles Campaign to Halt Mountaintop Removal." Democracy Now (May 23, 2011)
Hedges, Chris. "A Master Class in Occupation." TruthDig (October 31, 2011)
Hjersted, Tim. The Top 10 Films that Explain Why Occupy Wall St. Exists." Films For Action (December 13, 2011)
I Love Mountains Day 2011 (4 minute film: Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, 2011)
International Viewpoint ["International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow."]
Jobs with Justice ["Jobs with Justice engages workers and allies in campaigns to win justice in workplaces and in communities where working families live. JwJ was founded in 1987 with the vision of lifting up workers’ rights struggles as part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. We believe in long-term multi-issue coalition building , grassroots base-building and organizing and strategic militant action as the foundation for building a grassroots movement, and we believe that by engaging a broad community of allies, we can win bigger victories. We reach working people through the organizations that represent them—unions, congregations, community organizations—and directly as JwJ activists. Nearly 100,000 people have signed the Jobs with Justice pledge to Be There at least five times a year for someone else’s struggle as well as their own. In more than 40 cities in 25 states across the country, we are building coalitions of labor, religious, student and community organizations that are committed to each other for the long haul. Our campaigns make a difference for workers facing hostile bosses, knowing they are not alone in their struggle. At JwJ, solidarity is a two-way street: when communities come out for unions, they can expect unions to come out for them. Union victories are crucial, but they are not enough. We must maintain a strong commitment that our coalitions will weigh in on community fights. In 2009, local coalitions worked on a total of 111 workplace justice campaigns affecting more than 135,000 workers. Jobs with Justice coalitions supported approximately 46,000 workers in 56 organizing and first contract campaigns, and helped more than 10,000 workers at 17 workplaces win union recognition or first union contracts. Jobs with Justice coalitions worked on 130 community campaigns on issues like health care, immigrants’ rights, global justice, accountable development, state minimum wage increases, and sweat-free ordinances. JwJ coalitions were the primary coordinators for 70% of these campaigns."]
Jordan-Young, Rebecca. "Introduction to 'Critical Conceptions: Technology, Justice and the Global Reproductive Market.'" Scholar and Feminist Online 9.1/9.2 (Fall 2010/Spring 2011)
Katsiaficas, George. "1968, 40 Years Later: Student, Worker Protests Sweep France, Leaving Indelible Mark on the Country and the World. Democracy Now (May 14, 2008)
---. The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. (AK Press, 2006)
King, Martin Luther, Jr. "The Southern Christian Leadership Conference Presidential Address: August 16, 1967." Hartford Web Publishing (Also known as "Where Do We Go From Here" speech)
La Greca, Jesse, et al. "Introducing Occupy Educated (Video: November 23, 2011)
LGBT Pride Parades The Big Picture (July 8, 2011)
Leonard, Sarah. "Occupy Wall St. and the Downfall of the Smartest Guys in the Room." Bookforum (November 8, 2011)
Meer, Haroon. "Lessons from Anonymous on cyberwar: A cyberwar is brewing, and Anonymous reprisal attacks on HBGary Federal shows how deep the war goes." Al Jazeera (March 10, 2011)
"Mike Ferner of Veterans for Peace and Zach Choate of Iraq Veterans Against War on the 8th anniverary of the invasion of Iraq." Raising Sand Radio (March 18, 2011)
Milstein, Cindy. "On Radicalism." Deep Green Philly (November 8, 2011)
Milstein, Cindy, et al. "Anarchism in Thought, and Anarchism in the Streets." Against the Grain (November 7, 2011)
Mitchell, Greg. "The Occupy USA Blog." The Nation (Daily blog on the events/reports of the Occupy movement)
Moody, Chris. "How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street." Yahoo News (December 1, 2011)
Morgan, Jason. "'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland." History for the Future (March 2, 2010)
Occupied London [From 2007: Eighteen years have passed since Fukuyama proclaimed the “End of History” and his arrogant statement never fails to deliver a good laugh. When did history end? It certainly did not go up in the flames coming out of the Parisian suburbs last year. It was not trampled under the feet of the Latin American populations rioting against president Bush’s visit to their continent last week. It did not disappear in the fields of the Chinese rural populations constantly uprising against their masters, nor did it collapse along with the twenty-four year old now evicted Ungdomshuset social Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark – an eviction only made possible after seven hundred youths were arrested, spectacularly marking the end to the country’s social consent model. How could history end? Capitalism’s contradictions, it’s very own integral accidents make for a promising future. We live in exciting times: gone are the depressingly quiet nineties, ours could truly be an era of resistance and revolt. And yet, for all his injudiciousness, Fukuyama can ostensibly gain hope by gazing at very specific parts of the globe and London would probably be one of his favourite places to do so. Non-abiding to the physics law that action brings reaction, our city is one of the most tightly controlled and repressed urban spaces in the world yet resistance seems to be scarce. But how did we even get here? The capital city of the Fallen British Empire knew only too well how to go down in style, just like the fallen empire itself: Timely retreat and careful absorption of colonised populations into the ‘homeland’ have made sure that exploding suburbs remain a spectacle to be seen just on the other side of the English Channel. Centuries of experience gained by colonial rule guaranteed that when the colonial process was to be internalised and applied to the homeland’s own populations and cities it would be done so at utmost perfection. Contemporary Britain boasts the most advanced and widely applied surveillance technology systems in the world; control encroaches all elements of the everyday lives of what seems to be a spectacularly apathetic population. Voices of Resistance from Occupied London was born some 10,000 km away from the British capital, in rural South Africa. One of the oddest things about London is how it is always easier to understand and interpret some of its most striking features from a safe distance. Indeed, the view of our city from afar dictated a need for a strong anarchist presence: If we can do London, we can do any place, we can do all places! …and most places are not even like London at all. Live here for too long and it becomes only too easy to forget that this condition is an exception, not the rule. Luckily, this is a fact constantly reminded to us by comrades and friends arriving and leaving the city in an endless flux, in turn comprising one of the city’s most promising features. One of the journal’s main aspirations is to use itself as a medium to facilitate the exchange of such experiences and ideas, galvanising links between us here and our friends and comrades ‘abroad’. In the process of interpreting what it is that represses us in the city we have sought and received the most welcome help of contributors not necessarily abiding to our own ideas and principles. This is an anarchist publication aspiring to offer space to all people from the wider spectrum of the antagonist social movement."]
Occupy! N + 1 (October 2011)
Occupy Wall Street [New York City: "OccupyWallSt.org is the unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street. We are an affinity group committed to doing technical support work for resistance movements. We are not affiliated with Adbusters, anonymous or any other organization. Occupy Wall Street is a horizontally organized resistance movement employing the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to restore democracy in America. We use a tool known as a "people's assembly" to facilitate collective decision making in an open, participatory and non-binding manner. We call ours the NYC General Assembly and we welcome people from all colors, genders and beliefs to attend our daily assemblies."]
"The Occupy Wall Street movement has ushered in a new dialectic of world revolt." Monthly Review 63.8 (January 2012)
Onesto, Li. "California's Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike: "We Are Human Beings!" Global Research (July 18, 2011)
Political Media Review ("Political Media Review (PMR), a project of the Transformative Studies Institute (TSI), is an independent reviewing clearinghouse for social justice media. As a not-for-profit and fully-volunteer organization, we are dedicated to promoting, publicizing and being a resource for social justice media by providing a space where social justice film and publication reviews can be accessed in a central location. PMR writes original reviews and collects already existing reviews of media. We have been in operation since January 2009.")
Potter, Will. "From Tim DeChristopher to Tar Sands Protests, the Environmental Movement Steps Up Civil Disobedience." Green is the New Red (September 2, 2011)
---. "What is the "Green Scare." Green is the New Red (2011)
Revolution by the Book (AK Press Blog/Oakland, CA: "The purpose ... is to inform people about anarchist publishing in general and AK Press in particular. We will post interviews with AK authors, reviews of and excerpts from AK books, and reports on the events at AK. We will also post news about other anarchist publishers and booksellers, translations, interviews with activists behind other projects, and lists of relevant conferences. We will use video and audio whenever possible."]
Right Here All Over: Occupy Wall Street Protests (Alex Mallis and Lily Henderson, 2011: 6 mins and 52 seconds)
Rowan, Harriet Blair. "Wisconsin’s Uprising: A Guided Tour of the 11-Day Protest Encampment Inside the State Capitol in Madison." Democracy Now (February 25, 2011)
Scott, William. "The People's Library of Occupy Wall Street Lives On." The Nation (December 12, 2011)
Seal, Kevin. "News of the Occupation: Occupiers Past and Present – Oakland Union of the Homeless." The Occupied Oakland Journal (November 17, 2011)
Sharp, Gene. "The Most Influential American Thinker on Non-Violent Struggle You’ve Never Heard Of." Uprising Radio (February 17, 2011)
Sisk-Franco, Caleen. "The War Dance of the Winnemem Wintu." Making Contact (May 13, 2009)
Sitrin, Marina. "Ruptures in imagination: Horizontalism, autogestion and affective politics in Argentina." Policy & Practice (Autumn 2007)
Solnit, David and Rebecca Solnit. The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2009.
Solnit, Rebecca. "You Can Crush the Flowers, But You Can’t Stop the Spring." ZNET (November 23, 2011)
"Statement by Resist and Multiply in NYC: Beyond Wall Street." Gathering Forces (October 22, 2011)
Tate, Greg. "Fight for rights, will to power: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975." Sight and Sound (December 2011)
Tomlinson, Jay. "Compilations of Media Clips of Reports on the Occupy Movement, Pts. 1-7." Best of the Left (September - November, 2011)
"Uprising in Egypt: A Two-Hour Special on the Revolt Against the U.S.-Backed Mubarak Regime." Democracy Now (February 5, 2011)
Walgrave, Stefaan, et al, eds. The World Says No To War: Demonstrations Against the War in Iraq. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2010. [Available in BCTC Library DS79.767 P76 W67 2010]
Wilder, Forrest. "Rick Perry's Army of God." Texas Observer (August 3, 2011)
"Yemen Protests 2011." Global Voices (Ongoing Archive)
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492 - The Present. History is a Weapon (Hosting the entire book)
Anarkismo ["Anarkismo.net is the product of international co-operation between anarchist organizations and individuals ... . It is intended to further communication, discussion and debate within the global anarchist movement. Our intention is to build this site into a resource that is truly global and multilingual. ... Anarchism will be created by the class struggle between the vast majority of society (the working class) and the tiny minority that currently rule. A successful revolution will require that anarchist ideas become the leading ideas within the working class. This will not happen spontaneously. Our role is to make anarchist ideas the leading ideas or, as it is sometimes expressed, to become a "leadership of ideas". A major focus of our activity is our work within the economic organizations of the working class (labour organizations, trade unions, syndicates) where this is a possibility. We therefore reject views that dismiss activity in the unions because as members of the working class it is only natural that we should also be members of these mass organizations. Within them we fight for the democratic structures typical of anarcho-syndicalist unions like the 1930's CNT. However, the unions no matter how revolutionary cannot replace the need for anarchist political organisation(s). We also see it as vital to work in struggles that happen outside the unions and the workplace. These include struggles against particular oppressions, imperialism and indeed the struggles of the working class for a decent place and environment in which to live. Our general approach to these, like our approach to the unions, is to involve ourselves with mass movements and within these movements, in order to promote anarchist methods of organisation involving direct democracy and direct action. We actively oppose all manifestations of prejudice within the workers' movement and society in general and we work alongside those struggling against racism, sexism, [religious] sectarianism and homophobia as a priority. We see the success of a revolution and the successful elimination of these oppressions after the revolution being determined by the building of such struggles in the pre-revolutionary period. The methods of struggle that we promote are a preparation for the running of society along anarchist and communist lines after the revolution. We oppose imperialism but put forward anarchism as an alternative goal to nationalism. We defend grassroots anti-imperialist movements while arguing for an anarchist rather than nationalist strategy. We recognise a need for anarchist organisations who agree with these principles to federate on an international basis. However, we believe the degree of federation possible and the amount of effort put into it must be determined by success at building national or regional organisations capable of making such international work a reality, rather than a matter of slogans."]
Anonymous. "Anonymous and the global correction: A loosely organised group of hackers has been targeting oppressive regimes and has said this is just the beginning." Al Jazeera (February 16, 2011)
Baggins, Brian. "The Black Panther Party." Marxist Internet Archive (Archive: 2002)
"Bahrain: Below the Radar." Listening Post (April 23, 2011)
Bailey, Kenneth. "Who Shall Occupy Make Demands Of?: The Modern Case of the One-Eyed Monster." Groundswell (November 4, 2011)
"The Bamako Appeal." Monthly Review (February 13, 2006)
Benton, Michael. "A nation starts to mobilize: Something’s happening here." North of Center (October 12, 2011)
"Black Panther Party in Their Own Words." Seeing Red Radio (May 29, 2008)
"The Black Power Mixtape–Danny Glover Discusses New Doc Featuring Rare Archival Footage of Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, Stokely Carmichael." Democracy Now (January 24, 2011)
Boykoff, Jules and Kristian Williams. "Police Power and the Suppression of Dissent." Writers Talking (February 24, 2009)
Canning, Doyle and Patrick Reinsborough. "Changing the Story: Story-Based Strategies for Direct Action Design." In the Middle of a Whirlwind (2008)
Chiu, Joanna. "SlutWalk: Does The Media Make the Message?" WIMNs Voices (May 26, 2011)
Chomsky, Noam. “This is the Most Remarkable Regional Uprising that I Can Remember” Democracy Now (February 2, 2011)
Claiborne, Shane. A Monastic Revolution On Being (July 1, 2010)
Clausen, Amy. "Women and Skepticism" The F Word (December 17, 2009)
Coleman, Gabriella. "What It's Like to Participate in Anonymous' Actions." The Atlantic (December 10, 2010)
Coleman, Gabriella, Rich Fein and X. "Hacktivism’s Global Reach, From Targeting Scientology to Backing WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring." Democracy Now (August 16, 2011)
The Coming Insurrection Another World is Possible (Originally Published December 2008: this is a 4 part audio version available online).
"Consensus Decision Making (Direct Democracy @ Occupy Wall Street) (Video: November 2011)
Costa, Amanda Lin. "A Story of the Earth Liberation Front: An Interview With Documentarian Marshall Curry." Truthout (July 21, 2011)
Crawshaw, Steve and John Jackson. "10 Everyday Acts of Resistance That Changed the World: V?clav Havel called it 'the power of the powerless.' How regular people, from Denmark to Liberia, have stood up to power—and won." Yes! (April 1, 2011)
CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective ["Greetings, dissident. History is not something that happens to people—it is the activity of people. In every moment, in every decision and gesture, we make our culture, our life stories, our world, whether we take responsibility for this ourselves or ascribe this power to executives, politicians, pop stars, economic systems, or deities. In a society which glorifies their power and our passivity, all thought which challenges this passivity is thoughtcrime. Crimethink is the transgression without which freedom and self-determination are impossible—it is the skeleton key that unlocks the prisons of our age. CrimethInc. is the black market where we trade in this precious contraband. Here, the secret worlds of shoplifters, rioters, dropouts, deserters, adulterers, vandals, daydreamers—that is to say, of all of us, in those moments when, wanting more, we indulge in little revolts—converge to form gateways to new worlds where theft, cheating, warfare, boredom, and so on are simply obsolete. This webpage is one of many manifestations of the underground network through which we work to realize these daydreams, to take the reins of our lives and make our history rather than using the same energy to insist we are being made by it. If you have illicit ideas and intentions of your own to share, you're invited to join us here."]
"Communiqu? from an Absent Future." We Want Everything (September 24, 2009)
Curry, Marshall, Andrew Stepanian, and Will Potter. "“If a Tree Falls”: New Documentary on Daniel McGowan, Earth Liberation Front and Green Scare." Democracy Now (June 21, 2011)
"Declaration of the Occupation of New York City." New York General Assembly (September 30, 2011)
"Disguised Member of Hacktivist Group "Anonymous" Defends Retaliatory Action Against BART." Democracy Now (August 16, 2011)
"Fighting in the New Terrain: What's Changed Since the 20th Century." CrimethInc. (2010)
Franklin, Sarah. "Transbiology: A Feminist Cultural Account of Being After IVF." Scholar and Feminist Online 9.1/9.2 (Fall 2010 - Spring 2011)
"The Freedom Riders: New Documentary Recounts Historic 1961 Effort to Challenge Segregated Bus System in the Deep South." Democracy Now (February 1, 2010)
"Global Days of Rage." Democracy Now (October 17, 2011)
Goodman, Amy and Chris Hedges. "A Discussion About Occupy Wall St." The Charlie Rose Show (November 3, 2011)
Gosztola, Kevin and Dorian Warren. "Occupy Wall Street Emerges as “First Populist Movement” on the Left Since the 1930s." Democracy Now (October 10, 2011)
Graeber, David. "Occupy and anarchism's gift of democracy." (November 15, 2011)
---. "Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots: The 'Occupy' movement is one of several in American history to be based on anarchist principles." Al Jazeera (November 30, 2011)
Green, James. "Death in the Haymarket." We Are Many (June 17, 2010)
"Guide to Anti-War Websites." Guardian (2010)
Haney, Bill and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. "The Fight over Coal Mining is a “Fight About Democracy”: New Documentary with Robert Kennedy, Jr. Chronicles Campaign to Halt Mountaintop Removal." Democracy Now (May 23, 2011)
Hedges, Chris. "A Master Class in Occupation." TruthDig (October 31, 2011)
Hjersted, Tim. The Top 10 Films that Explain Why Occupy Wall St. Exists." Films For Action (December 13, 2011)
I Love Mountains Day 2011 (4 minute film: Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, 2011)
International Viewpoint ["International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow."]
Jobs with Justice ["Jobs with Justice engages workers and allies in campaigns to win justice in workplaces and in communities where working families live. JwJ was founded in 1987 with the vision of lifting up workers’ rights struggles as part of a larger campaign for economic and social justice. We believe in long-term multi-issue coalition building , grassroots base-building and organizing and strategic militant action as the foundation for building a grassroots movement, and we believe that by engaging a broad community of allies, we can win bigger victories. We reach working people through the organizations that represent them—unions, congregations, community organizations—and directly as JwJ activists. Nearly 100,000 people have signed the Jobs with Justice pledge to Be There at least five times a year for someone else’s struggle as well as their own. In more than 40 cities in 25 states across the country, we are building coalitions of labor, religious, student and community organizations that are committed to each other for the long haul. Our campaigns make a difference for workers facing hostile bosses, knowing they are not alone in their struggle. At JwJ, solidarity is a two-way street: when communities come out for unions, they can expect unions to come out for them. Union victories are crucial, but they are not enough. We must maintain a strong commitment that our coalitions will weigh in on community fights. In 2009, local coalitions worked on a total of 111 workplace justice campaigns affecting more than 135,000 workers. Jobs with Justice coalitions supported approximately 46,000 workers in 56 organizing and first contract campaigns, and helped more than 10,000 workers at 17 workplaces win union recognition or first union contracts. Jobs with Justice coalitions worked on 130 community campaigns on issues like health care, immigrants’ rights, global justice, accountable development, state minimum wage increases, and sweat-free ordinances. JwJ coalitions were the primary coordinators for 70% of these campaigns."]
Jordan-Young, Rebecca. "Introduction to 'Critical Conceptions: Technology, Justice and the Global Reproductive Market.'" Scholar and Feminist Online 9.1/9.2 (Fall 2010/Spring 2011)
Katsiaficas, George. "1968, 40 Years Later: Student, Worker Protests Sweep France, Leaving Indelible Mark on the Country and the World. Democracy Now (May 14, 2008)
---. The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. (AK Press, 2006)
King, Martin Luther, Jr. "The Southern Christian Leadership Conference Presidential Address: August 16, 1967." Hartford Web Publishing (Also known as "Where Do We Go From Here" speech)
La Greca, Jesse, et al. "Introducing Occupy Educated (Video: November 23, 2011)
LGBT Pride Parades The Big Picture (July 8, 2011)
Leonard, Sarah. "Occupy Wall St. and the Downfall of the Smartest Guys in the Room." Bookforum (November 8, 2011)
Meer, Haroon. "Lessons from Anonymous on cyberwar: A cyberwar is brewing, and Anonymous reprisal attacks on HBGary Federal shows how deep the war goes." Al Jazeera (March 10, 2011)
"Mike Ferner of Veterans for Peace and Zach Choate of Iraq Veterans Against War on the 8th anniverary of the invasion of Iraq." Raising Sand Radio (March 18, 2011)
Milstein, Cindy. "On Radicalism." Deep Green Philly (November 8, 2011)
Milstein, Cindy, et al. "Anarchism in Thought, and Anarchism in the Streets." Against the Grain (November 7, 2011)
Mitchell, Greg. "The Occupy USA Blog." The Nation (Daily blog on the events/reports of the Occupy movement)
Moody, Chris. "How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street." Yahoo News (December 1, 2011)
Morgan, Jason. "'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland." History for the Future (March 2, 2010)
Occupied London [From 2007: Eighteen years have passed since Fukuyama proclaimed the “End of History” and his arrogant statement never fails to deliver a good laugh. When did history end? It certainly did not go up in the flames coming out of the Parisian suburbs last year. It was not trampled under the feet of the Latin American populations rioting against president Bush’s visit to their continent last week. It did not disappear in the fields of the Chinese rural populations constantly uprising against their masters, nor did it collapse along with the twenty-four year old now evicted Ungdomshuset social Centre in Copenhagen, Denmark – an eviction only made possible after seven hundred youths were arrested, spectacularly marking the end to the country’s social consent model. How could history end? Capitalism’s contradictions, it’s very own integral accidents make for a promising future. We live in exciting times: gone are the depressingly quiet nineties, ours could truly be an era of resistance and revolt. And yet, for all his injudiciousness, Fukuyama can ostensibly gain hope by gazing at very specific parts of the globe and London would probably be one of his favourite places to do so. Non-abiding to the physics law that action brings reaction, our city is one of the most tightly controlled and repressed urban spaces in the world yet resistance seems to be scarce. But how did we even get here? The capital city of the Fallen British Empire knew only too well how to go down in style, just like the fallen empire itself: Timely retreat and careful absorption of colonised populations into the ‘homeland’ have made sure that exploding suburbs remain a spectacle to be seen just on the other side of the English Channel. Centuries of experience gained by colonial rule guaranteed that when the colonial process was to be internalised and applied to the homeland’s own populations and cities it would be done so at utmost perfection. Contemporary Britain boasts the most advanced and widely applied surveillance technology systems in the world; control encroaches all elements of the everyday lives of what seems to be a spectacularly apathetic population. Voices of Resistance from Occupied London was born some 10,000 km away from the British capital, in rural South Africa. One of the oddest things about London is how it is always easier to understand and interpret some of its most striking features from a safe distance. Indeed, the view of our city from afar dictated a need for a strong anarchist presence: If we can do London, we can do any place, we can do all places! …and most places are not even like London at all. Live here for too long and it becomes only too easy to forget that this condition is an exception, not the rule. Luckily, this is a fact constantly reminded to us by comrades and friends arriving and leaving the city in an endless flux, in turn comprising one of the city’s most promising features. One of the journal’s main aspirations is to use itself as a medium to facilitate the exchange of such experiences and ideas, galvanising links between us here and our friends and comrades ‘abroad’. In the process of interpreting what it is that represses us in the city we have sought and received the most welcome help of contributors not necessarily abiding to our own ideas and principles. This is an anarchist publication aspiring to offer space to all people from the wider spectrum of the antagonist social movement."]
Occupy! N + 1 (October 2011)
Occupy Wall Street [New York City: "OccupyWallSt.org is the unofficial de facto online resource for the ongoing protests happening on Wall Street. We are an affinity group committed to doing technical support work for resistance movements. We are not affiliated with Adbusters, anonymous or any other organization. Occupy Wall Street is a horizontally organized resistance movement employing the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to restore democracy in America. We use a tool known as a "people's assembly" to facilitate collective decision making in an open, participatory and non-binding manner. We call ours the NYC General Assembly and we welcome people from all colors, genders and beliefs to attend our daily assemblies."]
"The Occupy Wall Street movement has ushered in a new dialectic of world revolt." Monthly Review 63.8 (January 2012)
Onesto, Li. "California's Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike: "We Are Human Beings!" Global Research (July 18, 2011)
Political Media Review ("Political Media Review (PMR), a project of the Transformative Studies Institute (TSI), is an independent reviewing clearinghouse for social justice media. As a not-for-profit and fully-volunteer organization, we are dedicated to promoting, publicizing and being a resource for social justice media by providing a space where social justice film and publication reviews can be accessed in a central location. PMR writes original reviews and collects already existing reviews of media. We have been in operation since January 2009.")
Potter, Will. "From Tim DeChristopher to Tar Sands Protests, the Environmental Movement Steps Up Civil Disobedience." Green is the New Red (September 2, 2011)
---. "What is the "Green Scare." Green is the New Red (2011)
Revolution by the Book (AK Press Blog/Oakland, CA: "The purpose ... is to inform people about anarchist publishing in general and AK Press in particular. We will post interviews with AK authors, reviews of and excerpts from AK books, and reports on the events at AK. We will also post news about other anarchist publishers and booksellers, translations, interviews with activists behind other projects, and lists of relevant conferences. We will use video and audio whenever possible."]
Right Here All Over: Occupy Wall Street Protests (Alex Mallis and Lily Henderson, 2011: 6 mins and 52 seconds)
Rowan, Harriet Blair. "Wisconsin’s Uprising: A Guided Tour of the 11-Day Protest Encampment Inside the State Capitol in Madison." Democracy Now (February 25, 2011)
Scott, William. "The People's Library of Occupy Wall Street Lives On." The Nation (December 12, 2011)
Seal, Kevin. "News of the Occupation: Occupiers Past and Present – Oakland Union of the Homeless." The Occupied Oakland Journal (November 17, 2011)
Sharp, Gene. "The Most Influential American Thinker on Non-Violent Struggle You’ve Never Heard Of." Uprising Radio (February 17, 2011)
Sisk-Franco, Caleen. "The War Dance of the Winnemem Wintu." Making Contact (May 13, 2009)
Sitrin, Marina. "Ruptures in imagination: Horizontalism, autogestion and affective politics in Argentina." Policy & Practice (Autumn 2007)
Solnit, David and Rebecca Solnit. The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2009.
Solnit, Rebecca. "You Can Crush the Flowers, But You Can’t Stop the Spring." ZNET (November 23, 2011)
"Statement by Resist and Multiply in NYC: Beyond Wall Street." Gathering Forces (October 22, 2011)
Tate, Greg. "Fight for rights, will to power: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975." Sight and Sound (December 2011)
Tomlinson, Jay. "Compilations of Media Clips of Reports on the Occupy Movement, Pts. 1-7." Best of the Left (September - November, 2011)
"Uprising in Egypt: A Two-Hour Special on the Revolt Against the U.S.-Backed Mubarak Regime." Democracy Now (February 5, 2011)
Walgrave, Stefaan, et al, eds. The World Says No To War: Demonstrations Against the War in Iraq. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2010. [Available in BCTC Library DS79.767 P76 W67 2010]
Wilder, Forrest. "Rick Perry's Army of God." Texas Observer (August 3, 2011)
"Yemen Protests 2011." Global Voices (Ongoing Archive)
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492 - The Present. History is a Weapon (Hosting the entire book)
Max Fisher: Kentucky Creationist Museum Will Feature Dragons, Unicorns
Kentucky Creationist Museum Will Feature Dragons, Unicorns
By Max Fisher
The Atlantic
Kentucky's state-backed $150 million creationist theme park, The Ark Encounter, will allow visitors to explore a literal interpretation of the Bible's story of Noah and the ark. But pseudonymous liberal Kentucky blogger Media Czech raises two important questions about that interpretation and how it will be manifest in theme park form. First, were there dinosaurs on the original ark? Second, what about unicorns?
Now, the blogger has found answers to both questions at Answers In Genesis, the official blog of the group behind The Ark Encounter. The group says "yes," to both, which implies that their creationist theme park will include dinosaurs and unicorns on the Ark. Here's Answers In Genesis explaining why dinosaurs were on the Ark, although the group prefers to call them "dragons":
And here's their position on Biblical unicorns:
The Kentucky blogger fumes:
Link to Original and Hyperlinked Resources
By Max Fisher
The Atlantic
Kentucky's state-backed $150 million creationist theme park, The Ark Encounter, will allow visitors to explore a literal interpretation of the Bible's story of Noah and the ark. But pseudonymous liberal Kentucky blogger Media Czech raises two important questions about that interpretation and how it will be manifest in theme park form. First, were there dinosaurs on the original ark? Second, what about unicorns?
Now, the blogger has found answers to both questions at Answers In Genesis, the official blog of the group behind The Ark Encounter. The group says "yes," to both, which implies that their creationist theme park will include dinosaurs and unicorns on the Ark. Here's Answers In Genesis explaining why dinosaurs were on the Ark, although the group prefers to call them "dragons":
Being land animals, dinosaurs (or dragons of the land) were created on Day Six (Genesis 1:24–31), went aboard Noah’s Ark (Genesis 6:20), and then came off the Ark into the post-Flood world (Genesis 8:16–19). It makes sense that many cultures would have seen these creatures from time to time before they died out.
And here's their position on Biblical unicorns:
The biblical unicorn was a real animal, not an imaginary creature. ... The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.). ... To think of the biblical unicorn as a fantasy animal is to demean God’s Word, which is true in every detail.
The Kentucky blogger fumes:
Kentucky will now be known as the state whose governor endorsed and gave $40 million in tax breaks to people who want to tell children that science and history explain that a 600 year old man herded dinosaurs, fire-breathing dragons and unicorns onto a big boat 4,000 years ago.
Link to Original and Hyperlinked Resources
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
War/Conflicts: Peace and Conflict Studies Archive
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2011)
Aravamudan, Srinivas. "Introduction: Perpetual War." PMLA (October 2009)
"Architects of War." To the Best of Our Knowledge (October 5, 2009)
Assange, Julian. "WikiLeaks, War and Resisting Government Crackdown." Democracy Now (December 31, 2010)
Auken, Laurie Van. The still- classified 28 pages of the JICI dealing with terrorist financing, the 9/11 families’ stalled lawsuit to bankrupt the terrorists and the direct interventions by the White House to protect the Saudi regime against the justice-seeking families, and the many uninvestigated questions and facts covered up by the 9/11 commission. Boiling Frogs (August 19, 2011)
Bamford, James. "The Man Who Sold the War: Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war." Rolling Stone (November 17, 2005)
Barghouti, Mustafa. "Is There Room for Gandhi in Palestine?" Open Source (April 30, 2010)
Belasco, Amy. "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11." (Congressional Research Service: September 2, 2010)
Bennis, Phyllis. "As Fighting Continues in Tripoli, A Look at Role of the U.S., NATO and Oil Firms in Libya Uprising." Democracy Now (August 23, 2011)
Beyond the Frame: Alternative Perspectives on the War on Terrorism." Media Education Foundation (2004)
Bhagwati, Anuradha, et al. "Many Lines of Fire: Women at War." Making Contact (May 27, 2009)
Boal, Mark. "The Kill Team." Rolling Stone (March 27, 2011)
"Buying the War: How Did the Mainstream Press Get It So Wrong." Bill Moyers Journal (2007)
Campbell, Howard. "The Drug War Zone." History for the Future (February 15, 2011)
Carlin, Dan. "Pyrrhic Schadenfreude." Common Sense (May 2, 2011)
Chomsky, Noam. "There Is Much More To Say" ZNet (May 2011)
Clark, Ramsey and Harry Murray. ""Hancock 38" Defendants Found Guilty for Bold Army Base Protest Against U.S. Drone Attacks Abroad." Democracy Now (December 2, 2011)
Costs of War [Website of collected information and reports: Sponsored by Brown University and Watson Institute for International Studies]
Cramer, Mary Lynn. "Bomb Away Over Libya." Countercurrents (March 19, 2011)
Cavendish, Julius. "US’ New “Abu Ghraib” in Afghanistan." (March 22, 2011)
Dawson, Mike. "Ingmar Bergman: Shame." Left Field Cinema (February 26, 2009)
Debusmann, Bernd. "America's Problematic Remote Control Wars." Reuters (July 8, 2011)
Democracy Now ("Democracy Now!’s War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts. In addition, Democracy Now! hosts real debates–debates between people who substantially disagree, such as between the White House or the Pentagon spokespeople on the one hand, and grassroots activists on the other.")
Dominus, Susan. "Suzanne Collins’s War Stories for Kids." The New York Times (April 8, 2011)
Escobar, Pepe. "
No Business Like War Business: Who Stands to Profit from Intervention in Libya? From the Pentagon to the French government to the water privatizers, here are some of the beneficiaries of the campaign in Libya." AlterNet (March 30, 2011)
Espirit de Corps To the Best of Our Knowledge (May 16, 2008)
Fry, Douglas P. "Peace in Our Time: Steven Pinker offers a curiously foreshortened account of humanity's irenic urges." Bookforum (December/January 2012)
Gabbatt, Adam and Richard Adams. "London riots: the third night – live coverage." Guardian (August 8, 2011)
"Getting Away With Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees." Human Rights Watch (July 12, 2011)
Goddard, Stephen. "'So, Did You See Me?': Testimony, Memory and Re-Making Film History." LOLA #1 (2011)
Gourevitch, Philip. "Reporting the Story of a Genocide." Conversations with History (February 11, 2000)
Grosscup, Beau. "Cluster Munitions and State Terrorism." Monthly Review 62.11 (April 1, 2011)
Hersh, Seymour. "The Arab Spring, 'Disaster' U.S. Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Looming Crisis in Iraq." Democracy Now (June 3, 2011)
---. "Despite Intelligence Rejecting Iran as Nuclear Threat, U.S. Could Be Headed for Iraq Redux." Democracy Now (June 3, 2011)
"History of US Interventions History Commons (Ongoing Historical Timeline)
Hogarth, Sarah. Post Coup Aftermath - Honduras." Law and Disorder Radio (January 31, 2011)
Howe, Darius. "West Indian Writer and Broadcaster Darius Howe Commenting on the London Riots." BBC (August 8, 2011)
Hudson, David. "The Civil War @ 150 MUBI (April 12, 2011)
Iraq: The War Logs." (UK Guardian's archive and analysis of the Wikileaks Iraq War documents.)
Johnson, Chalmers. "Militarism and the American Empire." Conversations with History (2005)
"Julian Assange in Conversation with John Pilger." Top Documentary Films (2010)
Kearns, Michael. "CIA Psychologist's Notes Reveal True Purpose Behind Bush's Torture Program." (March 22, 2011)
Keller, Bill. "The Inner Lives of Wartime Photographers." The New York Times (May 8, 2011)
King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam." (Video Excerpts of a Sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967)
Klein, Naomi. "Goldstone's Legacy for Israel." The Nation (February 14, 2011)
Larsen, Solana. "United Kingdom: London Burning (Videos)." Global Voices (August 8, 2011)
Lederach, John Paul. "The Art of Peace." On Being (July 8, 2010)
Leigh, David, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke. "Guant?namo leaks lift lid on world's most controversial prison • Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts • Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held • 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release • Interactive guide to all 779 detainees." The Guardian (April 25, 2011)
Lobel, Jules. "Why America Is Losing the War on Terror." FORA TV (August 11, 2007)
McGirk, Tim. "In Exiting Iraq, U.S. Military Discards Trove of Found Documents on 2005 Haditha Massacre of Iraqis." Democracy Now (December 21, 2011)
Meer, Haroon. "Lessons from Anonymous on cyberwar: A cyberwar is brewing, and Anonymous reprisal attacks on HBGary Federal shows how deep the war goes." Al Jazeera (March 10, 2011)
Mitchell, Don. "You Who are the Bureaucrats of Empire, Remember Who We Are" History of a Weapon (April 6, 2004: Address at The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University)
Morgan, Jason. "'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland." History for the Future (March 2, 2010)
"“Muscling in on the media” – a Reporters Without Borders look at organized crime." Reporters Without Borders (February 24, 2011)
No Comment (Scott Horton's blog for Harper's Magazine: "A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Horton served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Horton recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association.")
"Osama Bin Laden File." The National Security Archive (National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 343: May 2, 2011)
"Out of Exile: Special Reports on Ousted Honduran President Zelaya’s Return 2 Years After U.S.-Backed Coup." Democracy Now (May 31-June 1, 2011)
Pilger, John. The War You Don't See. (UK: 2010, 97 mins)
The Power of Nightmares (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2004)
Quinn, Ben. "London riots and UK unrest: Tuesday 9 August [4th Night]." (August 9, 2011)
Rafael, Vincente. "Translation in Wartime." Arcade (2008)
Ratner, Michael. "Ten Years after 9/11: War, Operation American Condor (Guantanamo) , Civil Liberties and Hope." Law and Disorder Radio (July 25, 2011)
"Reporting the Egyptian Revolution." Listening Post (February 13, 2011)
"Responding to Genocide Today." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Ongoing Project)
Risso, Cristina. "War Crimes of General Stanley McChrystal." Project Censored (2010)
Rosen, Jay. "The Afghanistan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, the World's First Stateless News Organization." Press Think (July 26, 2010)
Scahill, Jeremy. "The Dangerous US Game in Yemen." The Nation (March 31, 2011)
---. "Secret Erik Prince Tape Exposed." The Nation (May 3, 2010)
Scahill, Jeremy and Samer Muscati. "On Blackwater Founder Erik Prince’s Private Army of “Christian Crusaders” in the UAE." Democracy Now (May 18, 2011)
Schecter, Danny. "Nailing Osama: The Media's Delight." Al Jazeera (May 6, 2011)
Scheer, Robert. "There Goes the Republic." Truthdig (December 14, 2011)
The Secret Iraq Files (Aljazeera archive for the Wikileaks releases of military documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars)
Sharlet, Jeff. "Norwegian Shooting Suspect’s Views Echo Xenophobia of Right-Wing Extremists in U.S., Europe." Democracy Now (July 27, 2011)
Sigal, Clancy. "Blair Mountain and labor's living history." The Guardian (November 11, 2011)
Singer, Peter. "On Drone Warfare." War News Radio (July 13, 2011)
Smith, Dan. "Libya and the Fog of Intervention." Dan Smith's Blog (April 10, 2011)
"The Soundtrack to War and Peace." To the Best of Our Knowledge (October 1, 2010)
Springer, Claudia. :Taken by Muslims: Captivity Narratives in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Prisoner of the Mountains." Jump Cut #53 (Summer 2011)
The Spy Factory NOVA (February 4, 2009)
"Uprising in Egypt: A Two-Hour Special on the Revolt Against the U.S.-Backed Mubarak Regime." Democracy Now (February 5, 2011)
Wallechinsky, David. "Why Do They Hate Us (Revised Edition)." All Gov (September 9, 2011)
The War Logs (The New York Times: "An archive of classified military documents offers views of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.")
Wikileaks (One of many mirror sites for this massive project designed to make vital secret information available to the public.)
Wise, Tim. Killing One Monster, Unleashing Another: Reflections on Revenge and Revelry (Website for the Author: May 2, 2011)
Wright, Ann and Ed Kinane. "Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks." Democracy Now (November 4, 2011)
Wright, Dani. "Afghan War: Largest Military Coalition in History." Project Censored (2010)
Yue, Genevieve. "The Curtain’s Undrawn: An Interview with Olivier Assayas on Carlos." Senses of Cinema #57 (2010)
Aravamudan, Srinivas. "Introduction: Perpetual War." PMLA (October 2009)
"Architects of War." To the Best of Our Knowledge (October 5, 2009)
Assange, Julian. "WikiLeaks, War and Resisting Government Crackdown." Democracy Now (December 31, 2010)
Auken, Laurie Van. The still- classified 28 pages of the JICI dealing with terrorist financing, the 9/11 families’ stalled lawsuit to bankrupt the terrorists and the direct interventions by the White House to protect the Saudi regime against the justice-seeking families, and the many uninvestigated questions and facts covered up by the 9/11 commission. Boiling Frogs (August 19, 2011)
Bamford, James. "The Man Who Sold the War: Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war." Rolling Stone (November 17, 2005)
Barghouti, Mustafa. "Is There Room for Gandhi in Palestine?" Open Source (April 30, 2010)
Belasco, Amy. "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11." (Congressional Research Service: September 2, 2010)
Bennis, Phyllis. "As Fighting Continues in Tripoli, A Look at Role of the U.S., NATO and Oil Firms in Libya Uprising." Democracy Now (August 23, 2011)
Beyond the Frame: Alternative Perspectives on the War on Terrorism." Media Education Foundation (2004)
Bhagwati, Anuradha, et al. "Many Lines of Fire: Women at War." Making Contact (May 27, 2009)
Boal, Mark. "The Kill Team." Rolling Stone (March 27, 2011)
"Buying the War: How Did the Mainstream Press Get It So Wrong." Bill Moyers Journal (2007)
Campbell, Howard. "The Drug War Zone." History for the Future (February 15, 2011)
Carlin, Dan. "Pyrrhic Schadenfreude." Common Sense (May 2, 2011)
Chomsky, Noam. "There Is Much More To Say" ZNet (May 2011)
Clark, Ramsey and Harry Murray. ""Hancock 38" Defendants Found Guilty for Bold Army Base Protest Against U.S. Drone Attacks Abroad." Democracy Now (December 2, 2011)
Costs of War [Website of collected information and reports: Sponsored by Brown University and Watson Institute for International Studies]
Cramer, Mary Lynn. "Bomb Away Over Libya." Countercurrents (March 19, 2011)
Cavendish, Julius. "US’ New “Abu Ghraib” in Afghanistan." (March 22, 2011)
Dawson, Mike. "Ingmar Bergman: Shame." Left Field Cinema (February 26, 2009)
Debusmann, Bernd. "America's Problematic Remote Control Wars." Reuters (July 8, 2011)
Democracy Now ("Democracy Now!’s War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts. In addition, Democracy Now! hosts real debates–debates between people who substantially disagree, such as between the White House or the Pentagon spokespeople on the one hand, and grassroots activists on the other.")
Dominus, Susan. "Suzanne Collins’s War Stories for Kids." The New York Times (April 8, 2011)
Escobar, Pepe. "
No Business Like War Business: Who Stands to Profit from Intervention in Libya? From the Pentagon to the French government to the water privatizers, here are some of the beneficiaries of the campaign in Libya." AlterNet (March 30, 2011)
Espirit de Corps To the Best of Our Knowledge (May 16, 2008)
Fry, Douglas P. "Peace in Our Time: Steven Pinker offers a curiously foreshortened account of humanity's irenic urges." Bookforum (December/January 2012)
Gabbatt, Adam and Richard Adams. "London riots: the third night – live coverage." Guardian (August 8, 2011)
"Getting Away With Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees." Human Rights Watch (July 12, 2011)
Goddard, Stephen. "'So, Did You See Me?': Testimony, Memory and Re-Making Film History." LOLA #1 (2011)
Gourevitch, Philip. "Reporting the Story of a Genocide." Conversations with History (February 11, 2000)
Grosscup, Beau. "Cluster Munitions and State Terrorism." Monthly Review 62.11 (April 1, 2011)
Hersh, Seymour. "The Arab Spring, 'Disaster' U.S. Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Looming Crisis in Iraq." Democracy Now (June 3, 2011)
---. "Despite Intelligence Rejecting Iran as Nuclear Threat, U.S. Could Be Headed for Iraq Redux." Democracy Now (June 3, 2011)
"History of US Interventions History Commons (Ongoing Historical Timeline)
Hogarth, Sarah. Post Coup Aftermath - Honduras." Law and Disorder Radio (January 31, 2011)
Howe, Darius. "West Indian Writer and Broadcaster Darius Howe Commenting on the London Riots." BBC (August 8, 2011)
Hudson, David. "The Civil War @ 150 MUBI (April 12, 2011)
Iraq: The War Logs." (UK Guardian's archive and analysis of the Wikileaks Iraq War documents.)
Johnson, Chalmers. "Militarism and the American Empire." Conversations with History (2005)
"Julian Assange in Conversation with John Pilger." Top Documentary Films (2010)
Kearns, Michael. "CIA Psychologist's Notes Reveal True Purpose Behind Bush's Torture Program." (March 22, 2011)
Keller, Bill. "The Inner Lives of Wartime Photographers." The New York Times (May 8, 2011)
King, Martin Luther, Jr. "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam." (Video Excerpts of a Sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church on April 30, 1967)
Klein, Naomi. "Goldstone's Legacy for Israel." The Nation (February 14, 2011)
Larsen, Solana. "United Kingdom: London Burning (Videos)." Global Voices (August 8, 2011)
Lederach, John Paul. "The Art of Peace." On Being (July 8, 2010)
Leigh, David, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke. "Guant?namo leaks lift lid on world's most controversial prison • Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts • Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held • 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release • Interactive guide to all 779 detainees." The Guardian (April 25, 2011)
Lobel, Jules. "Why America Is Losing the War on Terror." FORA TV (August 11, 2007)
McGirk, Tim. "In Exiting Iraq, U.S. Military Discards Trove of Found Documents on 2005 Haditha Massacre of Iraqis." Democracy Now (December 21, 2011)
Meer, Haroon. "Lessons from Anonymous on cyberwar: A cyberwar is brewing, and Anonymous reprisal attacks on HBGary Federal shows how deep the war goes." Al Jazeera (March 10, 2011)
Mitchell, Don. "You Who are the Bureaucrats of Empire, Remember Who We Are" History of a Weapon (April 6, 2004: Address at The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University)
Morgan, Jason. "'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland." History for the Future (March 2, 2010)
"“Muscling in on the media” – a Reporters Without Borders look at organized crime." Reporters Without Borders (February 24, 2011)
No Comment (Scott Horton's blog for Harper's Magazine: "A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School. A life-long human rights advocate, Horton served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner, among other activists in the former Soviet Union. He is a co-founder of the American University in Central Asia, and has been involved in some of the most significant foreign investment projects in the Central Eurasian region. Horton recently led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association, where he has chaired several committees, including, most recently, the Committee on International Law. He is also a member of the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, the EurasiaGroup and the American Branch of the International Law Association.")
"Osama Bin Laden File." The National Security Archive (National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 343: May 2, 2011)
"Out of Exile: Special Reports on Ousted Honduran President Zelaya’s Return 2 Years After U.S.-Backed Coup." Democracy Now (May 31-June 1, 2011)
Pilger, John. The War You Don't See. (UK: 2010, 97 mins)
The Power of Nightmares (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2004)
Quinn, Ben. "London riots and UK unrest: Tuesday 9 August [4th Night]." (August 9, 2011)
Rafael, Vincente. "Translation in Wartime." Arcade (2008)
Ratner, Michael. "Ten Years after 9/11: War, Operation American Condor (Guantanamo) , Civil Liberties and Hope." Law and Disorder Radio (July 25, 2011)
"Reporting the Egyptian Revolution." Listening Post (February 13, 2011)
"Responding to Genocide Today." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Ongoing Project)
Risso, Cristina. "War Crimes of General Stanley McChrystal." Project Censored (2010)
Rosen, Jay. "The Afghanistan War Logs Released by Wikileaks, the World's First Stateless News Organization." Press Think (July 26, 2010)
Scahill, Jeremy. "The Dangerous US Game in Yemen." The Nation (March 31, 2011)
---. "Secret Erik Prince Tape Exposed." The Nation (May 3, 2010)
Scahill, Jeremy and Samer Muscati. "On Blackwater Founder Erik Prince’s Private Army of “Christian Crusaders” in the UAE." Democracy Now (May 18, 2011)
Schecter, Danny. "Nailing Osama: The Media's Delight." Al Jazeera (May 6, 2011)
Scheer, Robert. "There Goes the Republic." Truthdig (December 14, 2011)
The Secret Iraq Files (Aljazeera archive for the Wikileaks releases of military documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars)
Sharlet, Jeff. "Norwegian Shooting Suspect’s Views Echo Xenophobia of Right-Wing Extremists in U.S., Europe." Democracy Now (July 27, 2011)
Sigal, Clancy. "Blair Mountain and labor's living history." The Guardian (November 11, 2011)
Singer, Peter. "On Drone Warfare." War News Radio (July 13, 2011)
Smith, Dan. "Libya and the Fog of Intervention." Dan Smith's Blog (April 10, 2011)
"The Soundtrack to War and Peace." To the Best of Our Knowledge (October 1, 2010)
Springer, Claudia. :Taken by Muslims: Captivity Narratives in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Prisoner of the Mountains." Jump Cut #53 (Summer 2011)
The Spy Factory NOVA (February 4, 2009)
"Uprising in Egypt: A Two-Hour Special on the Revolt Against the U.S.-Backed Mubarak Regime." Democracy Now (February 5, 2011)
Wallechinsky, David. "Why Do They Hate Us (Revised Edition)." All Gov (September 9, 2011)
The War Logs (The New York Times: "An archive of classified military documents offers views of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.")
Wikileaks (One of many mirror sites for this massive project designed to make vital secret information available to the public.)
Wise, Tim. Killing One Monster, Unleashing Another: Reflections on Revenge and Revelry (Website for the Author: May 2, 2011)
Wright, Ann and Ed Kinane. "Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks." Democracy Now (November 4, 2011)
Wright, Dani. "Afghan War: Largest Military Coalition in History." Project Censored (2010)
Yue, Genevieve. "The Curtain’s Undrawn: An Interview with Olivier Assayas on Carlos." Senses of Cinema #57 (2010)
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