Blog

  • Uprisings: Online Resouces

    With protests continuing, here is a partial list of online resources: For Libya: #Feb17; CNN’s Ben Wedeman; @EnoughGaddafi; For Bahrain: #Feb14, @OnlineBahrain; For Yemen: #Feb3; @JNovak_Yemen; Palestinian: #Mar15 Gulf: @dr_davidson, @tobycraigjones For Saudi Arabia: on Twitter: #Mar11; Webpages and blogs: rasid.com, ysoof.com/blog/?p=242, saudiwoman.wordpress.com, alasmari.wordpress.com, saudijeans.org To translate: translate.google.com Based in the U.S., but with extensive contacts…

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  • “A New Bipartisan Consensus Against Low Income People”

    The president’s budget is a prosaic austerity plan that inflicts disproportionate pain on low income Americans. Fundamental questions about the costs of war and the fairness of tax cuts for the rich have been avoided by the decision to narrowly target non-security “discretionary” spending to bear the weight of deficit reduction. It used to be…

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  • Challenges for Change in Algeria

    Tunisia and Egypt are relatively centralized states, Algeria not so, neither politically, nor culturally, nor geographically. Historically, the interior has been difficult to control, and there is no guarantee that the rest of the country would rally to the protests taking place in the capital as in the case of Egypt. The Algerian regime is…

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  • “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t”

    CAIRO — Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency state is still enforced. Old detainees are still in detentions and new ones since the 25th of January remain missing. There is no public apology for the killing. We hear several executives are being prosecuted, including…

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  • Time to forge new, democratic system

    CAIRO — Last night, February 11, Cairo was the scene of what may well have been the largest street party in world history.  It was incredibly powerful and moving.  Of course, the night’s festivities marked both an end and a beginning. Now is the time for Egypt’s judges, other legal professionals, diplomats, other negotiators, intellectuals,…

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  • Our Man in Cairo

    With Mubarak’s departure, the focus now falls on his chosen successor, Omar Suleiman. According to a classified American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Suleiman was Israel’s pick to succeed Mubarak. But there’s little doubt that he was also the choice of the United States, or at least of one particular American agency with which he…

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  • Online Resources on Egypt and Beyond

    With protests against the Egyptian regime continuing, here is a partial list of resources: A critical Facebook page is “We are all Khaled Said” — also see the associated webpage elshaheeed.co.uk. (For background on Khaled Said, see IPA news release.) See: egyprotest-defense.blogspot.com; live updates at guardian.co.uk; Al-Jazeera English live blog and video, or via YouTube:…

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  • Hungry Gazans Feed Egyptian Troops

    RAFAH, Feb 9, 2011 (IPS) – Mustapha Suleiman, 27, from J Block east of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, crosses through gaps in the iron fence on the border carrying bread, water, meat cans and a handful of vegetables for Egyptian soldiers stationed on the other side. [See at Inter Press Service]

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  • Egypt’s military-industrial complex

    With US-made tear gas canisters fired on protesters in Cairo, Washington’s role in arming Egypt is under the spotlight In early January 2010, Bob Livingston, a former chairman of the appropriations committee in the US House of Representatives, flew to Cairo accompanied by William Miner, one of his staff. The two men were granted meetings…

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  • Uprising Pays Off -– Sort of

    Today I went to a town only 23 kilometers south of Tahrir Square. The plan was to see if the 11-day uprising in Egypt has produced any benefits so far – just by way of finding something different from the insecurity and chaos in Cairo. Kirdasa, a small town known for its flower nurseries and…

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  • Environmental Degradation: “How the 1% Created a Monster”

    Chris Williams is author of Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis and a professor of physics and chemistry at Pace University. He recently wrote the piece “Frankenstorms and Climate Change: How the 1% Created a Monster.” He said today: “In point of fact, the whole reason why the candidates don’t want to discuss…

  • “Massive Surge of Republican Money”

    Paul Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute, and contributing editor at AlterNet. Jorgensen is assistant professor of political science at University of Texas, Pan American and Non-Resident Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center at Harvard. They co-authored a just-released piece: “Massive Surge…

  • “Romney Family Investment Ties To Voting Machine Company”

    Rick Ungar is a contributor to Forbes.com, and appears as the liberal voice of the “Forbes on Fox” television show and as a political pundit on other Fox network programs. He recently wrote the op-ed, “Romney Family Investment Ties To Voting Machine Company That Could Decide The Election Causing Concern.” It states: “A test conducted…

  • How Ballot Access Restrictions Block Democracy

    Editor of Ballot Access News, Richard Winger said today: “In the November 2012 election across the U.S., in 39.9 percent of all state legislative districts, there is no Democratic-Republican contest, because either the Democrats, or the Republicans, didn’t nominate any candidate. The United States, for legislative elections, suffers from undercrowded ballots, not overcrowded ballots. Yet…

  • Safe State/Swing State “Strategic Voting” for President

    Jeff Cohen is among a number of well-known progressives — including Daniel Ellsberg, Cornel West, Frances Fox Piven, Barbara Ehrenreich, Marjorie Cohn, Jim Hightower and Norman Solomon — backing a RootsAction.org proposal aimed at progressive voters: “If you live in a close state, defeat Romney and his right-wing policies by voting Obama/Biden. If you live…

  • Over 50 Dead in Haiti from Hurricane; Nearly 400,000 in Tents — Why?

    BRIAN CONCANNON [email], via Nicole Phillips [email] Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, Concannon said today: “Hurricane Sandy will kill many times more people in Haiti than everywhere else combined, despite barely touching the country with tropical storm-strength winds. Sandy shows that Haiti’s real disaster is decades of policies by Haitian…

  • Nuclear Reactors and Natural Disasters

    International specialist at Beyond Nuclear, Linda Gunter said today: “Given that all the safety systems are reliant upon offsite power, nuclear reactors in the path of this mega-storm need to promptly shut down because of grid instability. But when they do, they can no longer provide electricity at a time when it is needed most.”

  • Hurricane Sandy and Climate on Steroids

    The group 350.org organized activists in unfurling a giant “End Climate Silence” banner in Times Square on Sunday. Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org said today: “Meteorologists have called this ‘the biggest storm ever to hit the U.S. mainland,’ which is a reminder of how odd our weather has been in this hottest year in…

  • Campaigns Ignore Climate Disruption as Problem Worsens and “Wake-up” Storm Expected on East Coast

    Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, Tyler Slocum said today: “For the first time in 24 years, neither the presidential nor vice-presidential candidates were asked a question about climate disruption during the debates. And the candidates have failed to highlight the issue as well — unless you count Governor Romney’s use of climate change as…

  • New Poll Finds 84 Percent Say Corporate Political Spending Drowns Out Average Americans

    LisaGilbert is with Public Citizen, Lauren Strayer is with Demos and Mary Boyle is with Common Cause. The three groups are part of the Corporate Reform Coalition, which just released a poll on the public’s attitudes toward money in politics.

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