Democracy Now!
Corporations have taken not just the right to influence lawmaking—with fifty-six paid lobbyists now in Washington for every elected officeholder—but even the right to initiate and organize lawmaking to benefit them.--Frances Moore Lappé, Democracy...
By Rebecca Wexler in JakartaGlobe The furor over the purloined cables released by WikiLeaks has now produced the first global Internet civil-disobedience movement. The online picketing of business Web sites like MasterCard and Visa has not only shown the power of online volunteers, but also the contradictions in Western democracies that preach press freedom abroad while
People power v money powerWhat happens when representatives from grassroots movements actually impress their opponents enough to do what Dr. King named as the purpose of direct action, that is, to get to the negotiating table? Do they then play hardbal...
If you’re interested in taking part in the Global Day of Listening to Afghans with the Afghan Youth Peace Vounteers, you can listen to a live broadcast on Afghans for Peace TV above, which is steaming now. It is a unique opporunity to hear directly from the Afghan people about what they want and how
In an unprecedented ruling, a Danish judge has told police to pay activists tens of thousands of pounds. Bibi van der Zee, Guardian.co.UK Danish police have been ordered to pay tens of thousands of pounds compensation to hundreds of climate protesters, after a court ruling today. The unprecedented ruling coincides with the release of an audio
At the New York Times City Room blog, religion reporter Paul Vitello writes about a new ad in the middle of Times Square: Into that bazaar of mass preoccupation, half a dozen members of an organization called Muslims for Peace fanned out Friday, smiling and offering their wares. They belonged to a sect, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community,
While the Swedes, Brits and US actually move onstage and behind the scenes to extradite a man for possibly failing to use a condom in consensual sex, some US Republicans are threatening to vote against the STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty--the "New Star...
Had enough Christmas consumption yet? Well, if you’re in New York, you can catch Reverend Billy and his Life After Shopping Gospel Choir for their Peace on Earth Revival at the Society for Ethical Culture on Saturday. If you don’t know him, Rev. Billy is a fantastic performance artist who uses the idiom of evangelical
On the same day Yahoo laid off 600 of its employees, Yahoo’s image search function leaned a bit toward the risqué. And by that I mean an onslaught of X-rated imagery. For a few brief hours, any and all Yahoo image searches—no matter the apple-cheeked innocence motivating said search—turned up a snapshot of a man and
That We May Know Each Other, the Neighbor I am to Love There is a Sura, a chapter, in the Qur’an in which God speaks to humankind in regard to our own creation, the purpose of our own being, We created you from a single pair of a male and a female, ...
Whose stories are we telling about the war in Afghanistan? On the day following the White House report on the war in Afghanistan that names the war as a qualified success and calls for the U.S. to “stay the course,” we must lift up the alternative stories and reports of this near-decade of occupation, 
Scott Peterson, CS Monitor, December 16, 2010Mr. Mousavi has focused his statements on fighting tyranny and oppression, not unlike Imam Hussein’s struggle 14 centuries ago. “Hossein knew that the mortar between the stones of the palace of power was...
Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian, December 15, 2010There is nothing to compare with being there. Failing that, get a video-link. And suddenly here's Aung San Suu Kyi on a screen in front of us, live from 54 University Avenue, Rangoon.
Truthout, December 15, 2010Last April, writer and historian Barbara Goldsmith announced that Nay Phone Latt was the winner of the 2010 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith "Freedom to Write" award, which honors international literary figures who have been persecut...
Cecilie Suraski, Muzzle Watch, December 15, 2010By the time she was in high school, Sarah Smith had already been named one of the 100 most influential women in Chicago by Chicago’s business magazine, Crain’s. Now Smith, who happens to be Jewish, ...
As President Barack Obama was unveiling a new report on progress of the war in Afghanistan, a lineup of high-profile dissenters joined in an act of civil disobedience organized by Veterans for Peace that ended with about 135 demonstrators being arrested outside the White House Thursday afternoon. A solidarity protest was held in New York
