Fire in Istanbul, Rain in Vienna: An Inside look at Unrest in Turkey
This protest, in its rapid expansion, has grown to defy any specific cause. A list of several might do the job: A park under peril from construction, dead protesters – or rumors of dead protesters – and police brutality in general, especially after the extreme violence of the May Day gatherings. Then there’s Prime Minister Erdogan’s [...]
An Anarchist Outsider Amongst Türkiye Komünists
Istanbul exists separate from Europe and Asia. From Tophane, where the Bosphorous meets the Mediterranean, or the Eurocentric streets of Taksim, it’s easy to find oneself staring at the horizon from a roof terrace, ringed by fresh skyscrapers and the lofty spires of mosques as the evening prayer surrounds you. The calls are dissimilar and [...]
Syria: Behind the Lines
Watch Syria Behind the Lines on PBS. See more from FRONTLINE.
Warning: Contains graphic images of war casualties. This Frontline documentary on the Syria civil war depicts the horrific events many of the refugees we will be speaking to have endured. Once outside of Syria they’ve found safety, but their future is uncertain. Some are left permanently disfigured and disabled. The homes they’ve fled have since been destroyed. [...]
Help Us Tell The Stories of Syrian Refugees
Everyday nearly 2,000 Syrians enter Jordan to escape the brutal civil war. With your help I plan to travel to the Syria/Jordan border this summer to document their stories. (for more information about my project click here). My colleague Jordan Hattar and I will be blogging daily at Bold Type, and our work will be featured in any publications interested in [...]
The Witch Is Dead
The hag has been put in hagiography. U.S. coverage of the death of Margaret Thatcher has been uniformly fawning, revisionist drool. I awoke to the news this morning, accompanied by Joe Scarborough’s fatuous and specious claims that anti-Thatcher sentiment was, and is something that could be confined to his classist idea of ‘the North’ of [...]
Honor Students Treated Like Criminals
For more information on students like these and this film, go to: Ilegalmovie.org
Neil deGrasse Tyson Says The US Has Stopped Dreaming
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson argues that without better funding for NASA the imagination and technological future of the United States is in jeopardy. What do you think? Part 2.
Oscar Pistorius and Journalism by Archetype
Now that Oscar Pistorius has been charged with the murder of his ‘model girlfriend’ Reeva Steenkamp, the appellation given him, Blade Runner, is too ironic for good taste. The crass mythic characterization of Pistorius as ‘the Bionic Man’ and Nike’s ‘Bullet in the Chamber’ and now, according to some very unpleasant Internet mythography, as ‘the [...]
Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill and Rick Rowley’s Film About US Covert Warfare
Jeremy Scahill, investigative reporter for the Nation and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful mercenary Army, has teamed up with director Rick Rowley for a new documentary called “Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield,” which is being screened this weekend at the Sundance film festival. The film follows Scahill as he [...]
Zero Dark Thirty Waterboards the Facts
Since the dawn of American cinema historical events have been followed with jingoistic white propaganda films. Just to name a few: WWI had Charlie Chaplin’s The Bond. WWII had Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Casablanca, and Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 rightfully belongs on the list. Zero Dark Thirty is the latest such venture. Director Kathryn Bigalow [...]
Chris Christie: The House Majority Are Bad People
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) slammed the GOP house majority for their failure to vote last night on a Hurricane Sandy aid package his state badly needs. “There is only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: the House majority and their Speaker John Boehner (R-OH),” alleged Christie. Historically, “disaster relief was something that you [...]
Amazing Infographic: Follow The Money
This graphic by XKCD utilizes over 200 sources to show the distribution of money in the US. Be prepared to fall into a time warp as you explore. To see it in full detail click the thumbnail and zoom.
Five Reasons A Leaderless Republican Party Will Have to Rebrand
The Republican Party is now leaderless and faced with several pressing challenges: 1.) ECONOMICS: When the Bush Tax Cuts expire, potentially decreasing the deficit by nearly 70%, Republicans will lose a main talking point feeding passionate constituents who struggle with understanding economic issues but see the deficit as problematic. Unemployment is also expected to continue decreasing over the next four [...]
Best Republican Facebook Freak Outs From Last Night’s Election
Once it was announced that Obama won the election Facebook was flooded with posts from crazy Republicans freaking out about the coming apocalypse. Here are just a few of the glorious ones we stumbled across… It must be a cold day in hell. “Now you know why Biden had that Silly grin.” Well yes, but [...]
Lords of Business, Gods of Rape
Everyday you’re bound to hear someone make an asinine comment or say something vilely stupid, but no one does so with the hubris and particular grace of today’s GOP candidates – especially when talking about rape. They excel at the absurd, exclaiming such inanities as exemplary of exceptional leadership, valor, and public policy; these are [...]
The Dismantling of David Mamet
“Please remember that we have the secret ballot and, should you, on reflection, vote in secret for a candidate you would not endorse in public, you would not be alone.” – David Mamet So ends playwright and filmmaker David Mamet’s opinion piece “A Note To A Stiff-Necked People” published this month by Jewish Journal. Whatever [...]
Who Won Last Night’s Debate – Before It Happened?
Jimmy Kimmel’s crew hit the streets a few hours before the debate with the question, “who won last night’s debate?” What they found: much like Mitt Romney, uninformed citizens are completely comfortable lying their asses off on national television.
A Romney Administration Would Have No Democracy On PBS
Mitt Romney wants to end funding for PBS and NPR. Besides all of the educational programs which help close the gap in literary skills and elementary mathematics for low-income kids, countless specials such as The United States of Poetry, which aired this spoken word rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Democracy,” would risk never being made. This [...]
Infographic: 50 Years of Health Care Costs
The American Medical Association released this infographic today on the last health costs in the US. Over the last 50 years the cost of health care has surged and is now growing faster than the US economy. Access to health care is distributed unevenly across the population with only half the population accounting for more [...]
Ted Koppel Blows Bill O’Reilly a Kiss
Ted Koppel makes a stand for journalistic integrity and brilliantly concludes his argument with a kiss. Koppel: “It’s (Fox News) a business, and it operates as a business. Once upon a time you and I actually thought journalism was a calling.” O’Reilly: “But I still think I’m doing something noble. “
Dead Voters
Let us be clear: in the United States, the squalid intimidations and Kafka-esque bureaucratic disenfranchisement surrounding the 2012 Presidential Election demand the presence of independent electoral monitors. The United States is witnessing a systematic attempt by right wing and Republican operatives to disenfranchise millions of its citizens under the pretense of preventing the propaganda phantom [...]
The Other Video Depicting Islam That Should Have Your Attention
There seems little challenge to the claims that what provoked the attacks on the US Embassies in Cairo and Benghazi, killing US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three of his staff members, was an angry mob incensed by a trailer for an obscurely made film, Innocence of Muslims. The 14-minute long video depicting the [...]
Introduction Video: Chris Stevens, US Ambassador to Libya
There are many speculations surfacing as everyone tries to figure out the exact details of the past 24 hours in Libya and Egypt What we do know is that four US diplomats are dead, one of them is US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. Instead of politicizing this atrocity, lets take a moment to reflect [...]
Mitt Romney sits down with a veteran and loses a vote
If you have yet to see this video, watch it now.
Video: Mitt the Twitt and his Flip Flopping Follies
This campaign ad from the Democratic National Committee highlights the question: What does Mitt actually believe other than that he wants to be president? Besides flip flopping on nearly every issue, Mitt has yet to layout even one proposed policy of his own. When googling Mitt Flip Flops, we found these: Mitt Flip Flops
Google’s breathtaking interactive map of the global small arms trade
It’s not much of a secret that the majority of small arms and ammunition traded globally begins in the United States. From Google’s Blog: Did you know that 60 percent of all violent deaths are due to small arms and light weapons? Small arms, such as revolvers, assault rifles and light machine guns, and ammunition represent a [...]
When Vaccination Backfires
An acquaintance of mine, lets call her Ruth, has been saturating my Facebook ‘news feed’ with pictures of her child. It started slowly. Photos of backpacking trips with her future husband and nights out at the bar, turned into pictures of a bridal party and a recently purchased home. Overnight a henna painted belly and [...]
Infographic: 47 million Women will benefit from Obamacare starting August 1st
When eight Obamacare regulations go into effect tomorrow, 47 million women will benefit from the guaranteed coverage of preventive services — including contraception coverage — without co-pays. The new rules will require most insurance plans to begin including the services at no additional cost at the next renewal date that falls on or after August 1, according to a [...]
The Libor Scandal Explained
Trying to wrap your mind around the biggest, nastiest, most disturbing banking scam of all time? To help you grasp the basics, here’s Matt Taibbi talking to Eliot Spitzer about the Libor scandal along with a graphical attempt to explain, in simple terms, what the hell happened.
North Korea’s Official Tourism Website
Ready to travel to the land where Christopher Hitchens said you can read the Pyongyang Times through the soup, the tea, or the coffee? Well, you can. North Korea has added a tourism portion to its official website. Time to take that romantic getaway you’ve been dreaming about and go see the monuments celebrating the “people who [...]
The Ted Talk You weren’t Supposed to See
Nick Hanauer, a self described “super-rich” entrepreneur, gave a compelling TED Talk about how the real job creators are the middle class—not the super-rich. Though in the past TED has released over 100 different political videos, they thought this one was too partisan to release. Under pressure from many internet sources, TED finally relented and [...]
Doctorow, Amis and Atwood discuss America’s Global Politics
This year’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature brought roughly 100 writers from 25 countries to New York. One of the most fascinating talks was with writers E.L. Doctorow (Homer & Langley, Ragtime), Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin, Year of the Flood) and Martin Amis (Money, The Pregnant Widow) regarding America and its role in global politics, something the Sunday [...]
Romney’s Etch-A-sketch Economic History
So this is the GOP’s message: There were no problems with the economy until the Obama administration took office. It was The POTUS’s policies that caused the crisis of 2008. Within a month of office all past and future debts are the fault of the POTUS. And though we can’t name a single regulation made [...]
A Staffer’s Life Sans Super PAC
Billionaire Sheldon Adelson is finally pulling the plug on Newt Gingrich’s tired campaign, but that doesn’t mean the work has halted for all of Gingrich’s staffers. All though Gingrich has cancelled his public appearance dates, his staff is still on the trail with his wife, Callista Gingrich, promoting her children’s book “Sweet Land of Liberty.” The book’s main character is [...]
H.L. Mencken’s Eulogy of William Jennings Bryan
Within hours of Ted Kennedy’s death Andrew Breitbart called him “A villain, a duplicitous bastard, a prick and a special pile of human excrement.” To little surprise, before rigamortis had a chance to grip his bulk, Breitbart was showered with much the same eulogizing. Days later the Internet is still inflamed with haters hating on haters for hating [...]
What More to Debate?
As the 2012 GOP Primary debates come to an end, one thing is certain: The Republican Party has gone mad, frothing from every orifice, Old-Yeller-in-the-corncrib-gnashing-at-the-hand-that-feeds, mad. For the casual observer this campaign season is just like all the rest. It’s the customary chest thumping of primates asserting they’re dominance. A few debates in I was about to [...]
Contraception, Historical Amnesia, and a Call for Reproductive Justice
As the 2012 GOP presidential primary draws closer to selecting a nominee for the general election, the topic of women’s reproductive rights is quickly becoming a central focus of the discourse regarding social issues in America today. Indeed, legislation introduced at the state level that restricts access to abortion increased 42% in 2011 from the [...]
Is It Cold Out Here, Or Am I Just A Woman?
Climate change? A mild winter? I’d like to propose another theory about high and low temperatures hanging around Washington, D.C. this February: Mother Nature is working her tail off to thaw the recent avalanche of anti-feminist rhetoric freezing over decades of advances in women’s rights. This is not science. I’m making a metaphor… but then again, [...]
Occupy Live Stream
It’s being televised. If you can’t make it to one of the protests, or are curious what the scene is really like — from bongo drums to police raids — you can watch from the front lines of dozens of Occupy locations. via Occupystream.com Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com
Police Brutality at Occupy Cal
While peacefully exercising their constitutional rights campus police took to brutally bashing tuition paying UC Berkeley students and community members today. The protesters, despite campus policy, had established an Occupy Cal encampment on Sproul Plaza to stand in solidarity with the Occupy Movement. Like many campuses participating in Occupy Colleges much of their protest has placed focus on the privatization of educational [...]
Occupy’s Three New Fronts
One of the main criticisms of the Occupy movement, voiced by supporters and adversaries alike, is that they’ve failed to make their message clear. At first to say so seemed unjust. After all, protesters are to raise awareness to a problem not to fix it, right? Wasn’t thinking the opposite part of the delusion of the 1960′s anti-war movement? [...]
Appropriation of an Occupation
Corporate appropriation. It happens to every subculture, movement, and edifying idea in America. This time the corporate entity forging to capitalize is Viacom’s MTV and their new product is Occupy Wall Street. MTV’s not the first to capitalize off of OWS. Shortly after the occupation began several venders set up shop in Liberty Square. Some [...]
Obama, Victim or Villain?
Psychologist Drew Westen’s NY Times op-ed, “What Happened to Obama,” caused a ripple throughout the blogsphere last week, splitting many progressives into two camps prior to the Republican Iowa Caucus. Some took to Twitter and Facebook jumping on the everything-would-be-in-its-right-place-if-the-president-told-better-stories band wagon. Others clung to the idea that Obama is a mere victim of a [...]
Rove’s Brain
Published in the North Coast Journal May 5th, 2011 Barack Obama announced his reelection campaign on April 5, and within hours Karl Rove, the crafty political strategist once famously dubbed “Bush’s Brain,” was on Fox news opining on the field of Republican candidates. Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was cited as a leading contender. Was there [...]
Crowdsourcing a Constitution
Iceland is rewriting its constitution through 21st century methods — social media. Last year Iceland elected 25 people to sit on a constitutional council. Upon meeting, the council opened the process to the nation’s 320,000 citizens via a website, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Being that over two thirds of Icelanders are on Facebook, most citizens can [...]
Beyond Red and Blue
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press has conducted an exhaustive survey every six years since 1987 on the American political landscape called Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology. The survey seeks to go beyond the nomenclature of liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican; it seeks to identify distinct trends in [...]
Want Domestic Auto Manufacturing? Nationalize Healthcare
In 2008 General Motors held on to the title of the chief carmaker of the world. That same year, as the US entered into a recession due to Wall Street thug’s ponzi schemes in the subprime lending housing market, the auto industry –already in two decades of steady decline – plummeted. As even monks meditating [...]
Let’s Get Stimulated
Here it is, the rap battle of the century. Who knew it would be between two renowned (and deceased) economists, John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek? Econstories.tv director John Papola and economist Russell Roberts pit these titans of economic thought against each other in two dope rap videos. Nerdcore represent. Papola and Roberts teamed up [...]
Diary: Tim Hetherington 1970 – 2011
Camera + Directed by Tim Hetherington Edit + Sound design by Magali Charrier “Diary is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to [...]
