UBL: The Progressive Regressive?

Emmanuel Goldstein Lives!

Wow, the guy is pro-environment, anti-corporation, pro-Chomsky, anti-bailout ... a real hero of the progressive left, and just in time! Thank heavens we figured this out before the world lurched leftward; now we can stay firmly rooted in rightness, secure in the knowledge that the friend of our enemies is our enemy -- or is it friend? This is all getting very confusing, and quite tiresome as well. No word yet on UBL's upcoming book "Cave Fear" or whether Michael Moore will write the foreword...

Read it and get the creeps

Yes, There's Lots of OIL in Haiti

Exxon Marks the Spot

"There is evidence that the United States found oil in Haiti decades ago and due to the geopolitical circumstances and big business interests of that era made the decision to keep Haitian oil in reserve for when Middle Eastern oil had dried up.... There is also good evidence that these very same big US oil companies and their inter-related monopolies of engineering and defense contractors made plans, decades ago, to use Haiti's deep water ports either for oil refineries or to develop oil tank farm sites or depots where crude oil could be stored and later transferred to small tankers to serve U.S. and Caribbean ports...."

Read it and weep

And there's more here too

Did oil drilling trigger the earthquake?

Haiti: A Brief and Revealing History

Things They Forgot to Teach Us in School

"The US has worked for centuries to break Haiti. The US has used Haiti like a plantation. The US helped bleed the country economically since it freed itself, repeatedly invaded the country militarily, supported dictators who abused the people, used the country as a dumping ground for our own economic advantage, ruined their roads and agriculture, and toppled popularly elected officials. The US has even used Haiti like the old plantation owner and slipped over there repeatedly for sexual recreation. Here is the briefest history of some of the major US efforts to break Haiti...."

Read the whole article by Bill Quigley

A War to End All Warring?

Iraq's Shocking Human Toll

"We are now able to estimate the number of Iraqis who have died in the war instigated by the Bush administration. The overall figures are stunning: 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million widows, 5 million orphans, about 1 million dead -- in one way or another, affecting nearly one in two Iraqis. By any sensible measure, it would be difficult to describe this as a victory of any kind. It speaks volumes about the repair work we must do for Iraqis, and it should caution us against the savage wars we are prone to. Now that Bush is gone, perhaps the U.S. can honestly face the damage we have wrought and the responsibilities we must accept from it."

Read the whole story

The Appalachian Katrina

We Need Your Help Here in Eastern Tennessee

"So here in east Tennessee, we need your help. We need you to get the word out that there is no such thing as clean coal. We need the rest of the nation to hear that a spill -- 40 times larger than the Valdez wreck -- has destroyed the waters and communities around Kingston, TN, and that it could happen again. We need your help to support the workers on the ground whose blood, sweat and tears are keeping these communities together."

Read the whole story

Ayers for Czar of Free Skools!

Obama and Education Reform

"I would've picked Linda Darling-Hammond as Secretary of Education in an Obama administration. She's smart, honest, compassionate and courageous, and perhaps most striking, she actually knows schools and classrooms, curriculum and teaching, kids and child development. These have never counted for much as qualifications for the post, of course. Then again I would've picked Noam Chomsky for state, Naomi Klein for defense, Bernardine Dohrn for AG, Bill Fletcher for commerce, James Thindwa for labor, Barbara Ransby for human services, Paul Krugman for treasury, and Amy Goodman for press secretary. So what do I know?"

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Revolt: It's Greek to Me

Making Sense of the Greek Uprising

"The events of the last two weeks represent the most major social explosion in Greece since the 1973 student revolt that was brutally repressed by the US-backed military regime ruling Greece at that time. Conservative politicians and Greek pundits have tried to delegitimize the adoption of forms of direct action, such as occupations, by arguing that, unlike the student revolt in 1973, today’s government is a democratically elected one. This fails to convince many of the protesters who feel that, rather than a genuine democracy, Greece’s political system may best be described as a two-party rule by corrupt political elites [ed. note: sound familiar, Americans?] that have consistently over the years failed to address the problems affecting Greek people in general, and young people in particular."

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FU2W :-)

Bush's Final F.U.

"In its final days, the administration is rushing to implement a sweeping array of 'midnight regulations' — de facto laws issued by the executive branch — designed to lock in Bush's legacy. Under the last- minute rules, which can be extremely difficult to overturn, loaded firearms would be allowed in national parks, uranium mining would be permitted near the Grand Canyon and many injured consumers would no longer be able to sue negligent manufacturers in state courts. Other rules would gut the Endangered Species Act, open millions of acres of wild lands to mining, restrict access to birth control and put local cops to work spying for the federal government." Doh!

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Sprechen Sie Anarchie?

Neuer Anarchismus in den USA

"The protests against the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999 exerted a substantial influence on the development of contemporary American culture of resistance. A remarkable aspect of this development is the revival of an anarchist movement, which today to a large extent the political dissidence in the country are defined. This volume presents the basis of this movement in nineteen individually initiated and annotated texts. The chapters combine the presentation of influential writers, collectives, and concepts with depictions of everyday anarchist culture." A general introduction to the history of anarchism in the U.S. starts things off. The best anarchist book of 2008!

Learn more and get this book!

Share the Land, Land a Share!

Land Sharing is a New Trend

"Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest venture is Landshare -- a scheme which puts people with large unused gardens in touch with gardeners wanting space. He calls it a 'food revolution destined to be the next great thing.' With more people wanting to grow their own food and allotments being harder and harder to come by, he just may be right. It is a simple and optimistic idea. People register their interest as a grower, a spotter -- someone who has seen land in their area that may be suitable for growing -- or an owner. The register will put these people in touch with each other." This land is your land, this land is my land...

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Get Your Peace On...

Peace Voice

"PeaceVoice is a project of the Oregon Peace Institute and is an idea whose time has come. PeaceVoice is devoted to changing U.S. national conversation about the possibilities of peace and the inadvisability of war. We are creating a library of previously unpublished articles written by peace professionals and offering them on a daily basis as op-eds to editors of newspapers and online news organizations. Essentially, we are free literary agents to busy peace professionals. We believe that by presenting academically informed opinions that promote peace and nonviolent conflict resolution, we give the public one of the best, and most seriously absent, inoculants against war."

Learn more