By Dave Lindorff

The family farm in America may be going the way of the dodo, thanks to the corrupt political influence of corporate agribusiness, but here's a chance for us all to concretely save at least one family's farm.

  “A person could perish of entertainment....”     - Garrison Keillor

“Did you see that the Pope has called for people around the world to get together for a day of prayer and fasting this Saturday?” asked my neighbor Harmon, looking up from his newspaper.

Snowden Wins Whistleblower Award

by Stephen Lendman

In America, he's a wanted man. He's a fugitive. He's a world hero. He connected the dots for millions. He told people what they need to know. 

Doing the right thing is its own reward. Transparency International Germany gave him its Whistleblower Award. He's "(t)his year's winner," it said.

Sparked by a public transportation fare increase in Sao Paolo a week ago, an estimated one million people showed up in cities across Brazil expressing  discontent with the limited opportunities they face and an indifferent government.

"It's not really about the price anymore," said Camila Sena, an 18-year-old university student at a Wednesday protest in Rio de Janeiro's sister city of Niteroi. "People are so disgusted with the system, so fed up that now we're demanding change."  USA Today, June 20, 2013

Like the protests in Turkey over the past weeks, this is an urban phenomenon dominated by the young.  Many are college educated and under or unemployed.  For most, these are their first political protests.  They chafe at wasted public expenditures.  In Rio, for example, the government spend millions for an international soccer tournament while the people idle away with few if any prospects for meaningful employment or a future.  (Image: Brasilia June 20 Semilla Luz)

By Dave Lindorff

The history of third parties in America is pretty dismal. The system is rigged against them, for one thing. But equally problematic is the lack of focus that leads to infighting and splits whenever a third party is created.

por Debra Sweet, Directora del Mundo No Puede Esperar          “Zero Dark Thirty” (La hora más oscura) crea un retrato del mundo según la CIA y pinta la tortura falsamente como necesaria para encontrar a Osama bin Laden.

Lo que pasó el 11 de septiembre de 2001 fue un horror. Las fuerzas que atacaron el World Trade Center (las Torres Gemelas) son totalmente reaccionarias.

NO OBSTANTE, lo que Estados Unidos hizo en nombre del 11 de septiembre ha sido un horror muchísimo mayor:

by Debra Sweet, Driector World Can't Wait

Next month, many organizations are coming together to protest in Washington and nationwide against indefinite detention and drone strikes, and for the closure of Guantanamo. We had not anticipated the relevance — and outrageous content — of the new film Zero Dark Thirty entering the public sphere at the same time.  But, it's here... what are we going to do about it?

Still Waitin’

A short film produced by

The Vietnam War Commemoration CORRECTION Project

To see the film, please go to:  www.ThisCantBeHappening.net

By Dave Lindorff

By Dave Lindorff

We need your help to engage a very special intern this summer.  For $1000, we will begin work on an online crowd-funding campaign to produce a two-minute pitch video to highlight the intent and goals of the e-book publishing of Redact This! a fantastic book of images by artists including Fernando Botero, Clinton Fein, Art Hazelwood, Daniel Heyman,  Jenny Holzer, Frances Jetter, Ann Messner, Malaquias Montoya, Richard Serra (creator of the piece above) and David Zung.  It includes text by Peter Selz and Debra Sweet and a timeline by designer and editor David Schwittek.

Please help give a boost to this campaign to raise the funds and get Redact This! published.

The Moral Challenge of ‘Kill Lists’

Editor Note: Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has been called President Obama’s “priest” as they wrestle with the moral dilemma of assembling a “kill list” of “bad guys,” a role that recalls how established religions have justified slaughters over the centuries, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

By Ray McGovern

In an extraordinary article in Tuesday’s New York Times, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” authors Jo Becker and Scott Shane throw macabre light on the consigliere-cum-priestly role that counterterrorist adviser John Brennan provides President Barack Obama.

  A Nation of Morons

by Stephen Lendman

Jefferson called an educated citizenry "a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."

Madison warned that "A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or, perhaps both."

NO to NATO & U.S. Wars!

May 20-21 the NATO military alliance will meet in Chicago.  Is this a sign of international cooperation and diplomacy at work in Obama's hometown, as NATO claims?

No. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military alliance through which the U.S. and its European allies dominate through military aggression, keeping the globe safe for Western imperialism. The greatest crimes of the US "war on terror," the massive death of civilians, the network of secret prisons and rendition, and the "humanitarian" interventions have all been done with NATO's forces and sometime, with its hand-wringing for appearance' sake.  Bill Ayers writes in We Say NO to NATO:

By Dave Lindorff

A few hundred years ago in colonial Massachusetts, the theocratic fascist men who ran that society had a way of dealing with free-thinking women in their midst: they burned them at the stake or drummed up hordes of frightened and unthinking neighbors to stone them to death.  

Most of us today imagine that if we had lived in those dark times, we would have stood up against such an outrage. Now is the time to find out.

By Dan DeWalt

Entergy Nuclear of Louisiana, which operates the Vermont Yankee (VY) nuclear reactor in Vernon Vermont has launched an attack on the state of Vermont with the help of the federal courts.

Vermont state law gives the state the power to decide whether to allow further operation of the reactor past March 21, 2012 (the expiration date for VY). When Entergy bought VY, they agreed to this law and swore that they would not try to abrogate it. This was an outright lie on Entergy's part, and they sued the state as soon as it was decided that further operation of this crumbling, leaking and led-by-liars reactor would NOT be in the interests of the state and they were not given permission to continue operation past March 21.

  Say No to War

by Stephen Lendman

Wolfgang Borchert: German, author, playwright, poet. His experience under Hitler and Wehrmacht service changed his life.

In Air America: Under the Imperial Eye, Chris Floyd reports on the recent revelation that Iraq's supposedly "sovereign airspace" is constantly under surveillance by a network of drones operated by the State Department. Apparently the only reason this news came to light is because of a publicly available government appeal for private bids on the project. Neither we nor Iraqis were meant to know:

"Iraqis were outraged this week to find they are being spied upon by a fleet of American drones hovering constantly in their supposedly sovereign skies, long after the supposed withdrawal of American forces."

It’s three years since President Obama promised to close Guantánamo.

Remind President Obama of his promise. Sign the petition on the White House’s “We the People” website urging him to honor his promise. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 6 to secure a response, so please sign up, and please spread the word.

What happened to President Obama’s bold promise?

Three years ago, on January 22, 2009, President Obama issued an executive order promising to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay within a year, but he did not move swiftly to implement his promise, and Congress then stepped in with onerous restrictions on the release of prisoners or their transfer to the US mainland for any reason, even to be tried or imprisoned.

Instead of being closed, Guantánamo still holds 171 men, even though 89 of these men were cleared for release more than two years ago by the interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force (PDF), which was established by the President after taking office.

By Lori Spencer

Having spent the better part of two months as an embedded reporter with Occupy OKC's camp in Kerr Park (aka Poet's Park) I have often praised both the city and police department. Oklahoma City's occupation has so far managed to avoid the mass arrests and police brutality seen in other cities around the nation. In my opinion, this is largely due to the group's respect for the park and city ordinances, as well as the city's respect for the First Amendment. I frequently pointed to OKC as a model city, setting an example for how a local government and occupiers can peacefully coexist.

This time of year is ideal for reflecting on the miracle of Christmas 1914, that famous temporary truce and friendship between opposing sides in the midst of a war. Here was a new type of slaughter confronted with a new type of humanism, the leading edges of two opposing trends.

An op-ed in the New York Times last week by Steven Pinker and Joshua Goldstein argues that peace, rather than war, was the dominant development, and that over the millennia, centuries, decades, and right up to this moment, "War Really Is Going Out of Style."

"We Are Many" shows how mobilization in 2003 set stage for Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street

Dec 8, 2011 - On Feb. 15, 2003, the planet experienced the greatest single non-military mobilization of humanity in the history of the world. People in 800 cities (and Antarctica) marched to voice their opposition as George Bush’s countdown clock ticked away the days toward the threatened U.S. invasion of Iraq. Estimates of the total numbers of protesters vary widely but it seems plausible that 15 million took to the streets.

By Dave Lindorff

The US Congress is such a craven bunch that you really have to turn to Olde English to aptly describe them.

Consider that yesterday, by a vote of 93-7, the Senate approved a National Defense Authorization Bill that effectively defines the US “homeland” as a war zone, and that allows for the indefinite incarceration without trial of anyone, including US citizens and Green Card holders, without trial, in blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution and of fundamental international judicial standards.

By Lori Spencer

This is Part II of a series of reports from our traveling correspondent in the American heartland. Part Icovered the arrest of 10 Occupy OKC protesters as they “mic checked” a local Walmart on Black Friday. Part II takes them through 13 hours in an Oklahoma jail. Part III will culminate in the occupiers' final standoff against police as they face a forceful eviction from Poet's Park.
 

By Linn Washington Jr.

London -- Standing on a picket line in front of her work place at a world renowned heart-lung hospital in London wasn’t Jeanette Anderson’s first choice for how to spend her day.  

By Lori Spencer

Oklahoma City – In the early morning hours of Black Friday, 10 members of Occupy OKC  discovered that chanting “Buy local!” in a crowded Walmart is an arrestable offense in the United States of America. 

By Charles M. Young

After watching the Packers beat the Vikings on Monday Night Football, I had insomnia, so it was kind of an accident that I checked my email at 2 a.m. and discovered the police were clearing Zuccotti Park. Everyone had been expecting an eviction since it all started on September 17, but not expecting it at that particular moment. On my cell phone, there were several frantic texts from Occupy Wall Street begging for community support. So I hopped on a slow subway and arrived at Chambers Street about 3 a.m.