Global
If you had taken a walk through central London on the night of November fifth last year, as I did, you would have seen signs that the hollowing out of Western democracy is reaching an advanced stage. Two very different protests were taking place either side of the Houses of Parliament on the night of the year in which Britain celebrates Guy Fawkes's famous attempt in 1605 to blow the Houses up (famously inspiring the Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta).
The anti-austerity movement the People's Assembly blocked Westminster Bridge and made a bonfire of thousands of gas and electricity bills in protest at the private utility cartel's recent energy price hike. The average annual cost of heating and powering your home is due to be hiked by 8-11% this year by the cartel, while charities at the time warned thousands risk cold-related deaths in their homes this winter.
The anti-austerity movement the People's Assembly blocked Westminster Bridge and made a bonfire of thousands of gas and electricity bills in protest at the private utility cartel's recent energy price hike. The average annual cost of heating and powering your home is due to be hiked by 8-11% this year by the cartel, while charities at the time warned thousands risk cold-related deaths in their homes this winter.
Iraq vet Ross Caputi’s film opens with a fleeting synopsis of the American heartbreak — and the bandage we tape across it.
His documentary, Fear Not the Path of Truth, is about the U.S. devastation of Fallujah, in which he participated as part of Operation Phantom Fury in November 2004, but the first couple minutes give us an overview of his hometown, the “former industrial city” of Fitchburg, Mass.:
“But the factory jobs are long gone, so there’s really only two types of people that live here. They’re the people with good-paying jobs in Boston or Wooster who come out here to build big houses at relatively cheap prices. Everyone else gets by doing work on those houses, doing their lawns, putting additions on them, painting them.
“If there was a point of unity among all the racial and economic divisions in this little city, it had to be the troops. Everyone respected the troops.”
His documentary, Fear Not the Path of Truth, is about the U.S. devastation of Fallujah, in which he participated as part of Operation Phantom Fury in November 2004, but the first couple minutes give us an overview of his hometown, the “former industrial city” of Fitchburg, Mass.:
“But the factory jobs are long gone, so there’s really only two types of people that live here. They’re the people with good-paying jobs in Boston or Wooster who come out here to build big houses at relatively cheap prices. Everyone else gets by doing work on those houses, doing their lawns, putting additions on them, painting them.
“If there was a point of unity among all the racial and economic divisions in this little city, it had to be the troops. Everyone respected the troops.”
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Bangkok's political violence worsened on Sunday (Jan. 19) when grenades and gunfire injured 29 people at an anti-government protest, two days after a grenade killed one protester and injured 36 others who were marching to force the prime minister's resignation and stop an election scheduled for Feb. 2.
About 10 people in total have died in scattered shootings, explosions and clashes during the massive street protest which began on Oct. 31, and security officials are bracing for more attacks.
Sunday's (Jan. 19) first explosion occurred downtown during lunchtime at Victory Monument, where hundreds of protesters were peacefully camping in tents in the street next to their huge makeshift stage, to block traffic and disrupt Bangkok's economy in a bid to destabilize the government.
An unidentified man threw a grenade near a media tent erected for journalists, injuring at least 28 people including a Thai reporter, medical officials said.
Witnesses chased the suspect who then threw a second grenade and fired a gun at his pursuers, injuring one more person.
In the past year, during the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, when the darkness of fanatical Muslims beset Egypt, and when it seemed that the spirit of resistance was fading, and people were giving up, I was observing women, wondering how the new situation was affecting their looks, their clothes, and their make-up, and I kept hope as long as women kept wearing tight pants, and lipstick, as long as I saw girls and boys walking together and laughing out loud. “Fanatical groups will never own the heart of Egypt,” I thought to myself, “as long as women in tights are guarding the spirit of life.” And I was right.
On January 17, the Guardian.uk revealed startling new information about National Security Agency (NSA) bulk collection of mobile phone users’ text messages.
The Guardian published heavily redacted portions of a slide presentation made by the NSA for their British counterpart agency, the Government Communications Security Headquarters (GCHQ). The slide show detailed a series of programs known as DISHFIRE, SPYDER, and MILKBONE that collect not only metadata but also so-called meta-content. Meta-content refers to location, time and user data collected by examining content. This direct revelation of meta-content collection proves without a doubt that President Obama was lying when he claimed “No one is reading your emails.”
The Guardian published heavily redacted portions of a slide presentation made by the NSA for their British counterpart agency, the Government Communications Security Headquarters (GCHQ). The slide show detailed a series of programs known as DISHFIRE, SPYDER, and MILKBONE that collect not only metadata but also so-called meta-content. Meta-content refers to location, time and user data collected by examining content. This direct revelation of meta-content collection proves without a doubt that President Obama was lying when he claimed “No one is reading your emails.”
Toshi and Pete Seeger defy description except through the sheer joy and honor it was to know them, however briefly.
Their list of accomplishments will fill many printed pages, which all pale next to the simple core beauty of the lives they led.
They showed us it’s possible to live lives that somehow balance political commitment with joy, humor, family, courage and grace. All of which seemed to come as second nature to them, even as it was wrapped in an astonishing shared talent that will never cease to inspire and entertain.
Pete passed on Monday, at 94, joining Toshi, who left us last year, at 91. They’d been married nearly 70 years.
Somehow the two of them managed to merge an unending optimism with a grounded, realistic sense of life in all its natural travails and glories.
Others who knew them better than I will have more specific to say, and it will be powerful and immense.
But, if it’s ok with you, I’d like to thank them for two tangible things, and then for the intangible but ultimately most warming.
Their list of accomplishments will fill many printed pages, which all pale next to the simple core beauty of the lives they led.
They showed us it’s possible to live lives that somehow balance political commitment with joy, humor, family, courage and grace. All of which seemed to come as second nature to them, even as it was wrapped in an astonishing shared talent that will never cease to inspire and entertain.
Pete passed on Monday, at 94, joining Toshi, who left us last year, at 91. They’d been married nearly 70 years.
Somehow the two of them managed to merge an unending optimism with a grounded, realistic sense of life in all its natural travails and glories.
Others who knew them better than I will have more specific to say, and it will be powerful and immense.
But, if it’s ok with you, I’d like to thank them for two tangible things, and then for the intangible but ultimately most warming.
The National Security Agency depends on huge computers that guzzle electricity in the service of the surveillance state. For the NSA’s top executives, maintaining a vast flow of juice to keep Big Brother nourished is essential -- and any interference with that flow is unthinkable.
But interference isn’t unthinkable. And in fact, it may be doable.
Grassroots activists have begun to realize the potential to put the NSA on the defensive in nearly a dozen states where the agency is known to be running surveillance facilities, integral to its worldwide snoop operations.
Organizers have begun to push for action by state legislatures to impede the electric, water and other services that sustain the NSA’s secretive outposts.
Those efforts are farthest along in the state of Washington, where a new bill in the legislature -- the Fourth Amendment Protection Act -- is a statutory nightmare for the NSA. The agency has a listening post in Yakima, in the south-central part of the state.
But interference isn’t unthinkable. And in fact, it may be doable.
Grassroots activists have begun to realize the potential to put the NSA on the defensive in nearly a dozen states where the agency is known to be running surveillance facilities, integral to its worldwide snoop operations.
Organizers have begun to push for action by state legislatures to impede the electric, water and other services that sustain the NSA’s secretive outposts.
Those efforts are farthest along in the state of Washington, where a new bill in the legislature -- the Fourth Amendment Protection Act -- is a statutory nightmare for the NSA. The agency has a listening post in Yakima, in the south-central part of the state.
I still want Dirty Wars to win the Oscar, but The Square is a documentary worth serious discussion as we hit the three-year point since the famous occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo that overthrew Mubarak -- in particular because a lot of people seem to get a lot of the lessons wrong.
I suppose some people will leave Dirty Wars imagining that we need clean wars, whatever those would be. But too many people seem to be drawing from The Square lessons they brought with them to it, including these: Thou shalt have a leader; thou shalt work within a major political party; thou shalt have an identifiable group of individuals ready to take power. I don't think following these commandments would have easily changed the past three years in Egypt; I don't think they're where Egyptians should be heading; and I'm even more confident they're blind alleys in the United States -- where they serve as supposed remedies for the supposed failings of Occupy.
I suppose some people will leave Dirty Wars imagining that we need clean wars, whatever those would be. But too many people seem to be drawing from The Square lessons they brought with them to it, including these: Thou shalt have a leader; thou shalt work within a major political party; thou shalt have an identifiable group of individuals ready to take power. I don't think following these commandments would have easily changed the past three years in Egypt; I don't think they're where Egyptians should be heading; and I'm even more confident they're blind alleys in the United States -- where they serve as supposed remedies for the supposed failings of Occupy.
For the last two years, British Prime Minister David Cameron has been unable to remove a serious thorn in his side, in the form of a wave of hard-right sentiment across the country that threatens to split the Conservative vote in two. The UK Independence Party, these days referred to almost unanimously as Ukip, has become the chief banner for vigorously old-fashioned conservatism.
Ukip was founded in 1993 as a single-issue party, focused primarily on opposing Britain's membership of the European Union as an affront to national sovereignty. They initially contained anti-EU elements from both the left and the right concerned about globalisation and immigration respectively, but in the past 10 years the leadership has morphed the party's position to the right so that it has become a hotbed of xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and frothing-at-the-mouth rage against windfarms.
Where other strains of hard-right conservatism have failed in the past, Ukip has succeeded, partially because they attract protest votes in a political environment that is increasingly hostile to Westminster, but much more due to the no-nonsense charisma of their leader, Nigel Farage.
Ukip was founded in 1993 as a single-issue party, focused primarily on opposing Britain's membership of the European Union as an affront to national sovereignty. They initially contained anti-EU elements from both the left and the right concerned about globalisation and immigration respectively, but in the past 10 years the leadership has morphed the party's position to the right so that it has become a hotbed of xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and frothing-at-the-mouth rage against windfarms.
Where other strains of hard-right conservatism have failed in the past, Ukip has succeeded, partially because they attract protest votes in a political environment that is increasingly hostile to Westminster, but much more due to the no-nonsense charisma of their leader, Nigel Farage.