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Is this taking democracy too far?: The Greek People Have Said ‘No!’ to Austerity and Economic Blackmail
By Dave Lindorff
Something huge has happened in Greece, though you wouldn’t know it if you rely on the US corporate media for your information.
A pariah in his home state: Storm Smashes Chris Christie’s Presidential Candidacy
By Linn Washington, Jr.
If New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has any chance of gaining traction in his bid to become the 2016 Republican candidate for president he has to maintain support in suburban communities like East Greenwich Township, a small, predominately white, upper middle income area located about fifty miles south of Trenton, NJ’s capital city.
We don’t do body counts: Have Millions of Deaths from America's 'War on Terror' been Concealed?
By Jack Balkwill
How many days has it been
Since I was born?
How many days
'Til I die?
Do I know any ways
I can make you laugh?
Or do I only know how
To make you cry?
― Leon Russell, Stranger in a Strange Land
A victory for common sense and decency: 5 Cheers and 4 Raspberries for the SCOTUS as it Bars States from Blocking Gay Marriage
By Dave Lindorff
The pig-headed small-mindedness and intellectual dishonesty of most fundamentalists of whatever religion knows no bounds.
Dog whistlers run for cover: Lone Wolf Racist Terror Backfires
By John Grant
“Our ancestors were literally fighting to keep human beings as slaves and to continue the unimaginable acts that occur when someone is held against their will. I am not proud of this heritage.”
Corrupted Coverage: US News Media Still Can’t Get It Right on Race
By Linn Washington, Jr.
Does the intense news coverage examining the tragic massacre inside a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. and coverage exposing the travesty of the white woman who claims she’s actually black mean the mainstream media has finally ‘got it right’ regarding reporting on race and racism?
What were you doing on your vacation?: Returning Home to the US is to Enter a Police State
By Dave Lindorff
A few weeks ago, I got a vivid comparative look at how far this country has moved towards becoming a police state. The occasion was a brief visit to Montreal, where my wife was to give a harpsichord recital at an early keyboard music conference.
Killing prisoners through medical neglect: Mumia Attorneys Sue in Federal Court for Prisoners’ Right to Medical Care
By Dave Lindorff
Attorneys from the Abolitionis Law Center in Pennsylvania, an organization defending prisoner rights and challenging the state's penal system, have filed suit in federal court demanding that Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections stop preventing them from even seeing their client, journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, on occasions when he has to be hospitalized for a critical diabetes condition.
The case for ‘courageous restraint’: The Killer Elite, at Home and Abroad
By John Grant
We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.
- George Orwell
It approves the spy program and makes it permanent: USA Freedom Act is Anything But
By Alfredo Lopez
To get to the point: there is nothing -- nothing at all -- in any recent law or legislative action that will in any way weaken the police state structure our government has put into place for rapid deployment. You are not any more free than you were last week and, no matter what the Congress has done with the expired provisions of the Patriot Act or the newly developed and Orwellian-named "USA Freedom Act", you are not going to be any more free next week.
Here come the terrorists!: Help! The USA PATRIOT ACT has expired!
By Dave Lindorff
Omigod! We're all gonna die!
Three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act were allowed to expire on June 1 thanks to a Senate disagreement over how to "fix" them (and thanks to Sen. Rand Paul's outspoken opposition to renewal), and now we’re vulnerable to terrorism!
That at least is what President Obama and other fear mongers in Washington are saying.
It’s not just police killings: Tazing and Bust of Videotaper Shows Abuse of Blacks is Just Normal Philly Cop Behavior
By Linn Washington Jr.
A July 2013 Philadelphia police attack on Sharif Anderson, where officers beat, kicked and shot Anderson twice with a Taser, is more than just another ugly incident of abuse by a big city police force long assailed for its persistent brutality and corruption.
Memorial Day 2015: Antiwar Veterans Join the Conversation at the Vietnam Wall
By John Grant
Anthropologists have found that in traditional societies, memory becomes attached to places.
T.M. Luhrmann, New York Times Op-ed May 25, 2015
Here We Go Again: The Debacle That Bites Back
By John Grant
Finally! Some climate crisis honesty: Forget About a 2 Future; It Will be 4˚-6˚C Degrees, and Soon
By Dave Lindorff
A tectonic shift is occurring suddenly in the debate over climate change.
The US needs the Iceland option: If ‘Too-Big-to-Fail’’ Means Too-Big-To-Jail’ It Should Mean ‘Too-Big-to-Be’
By Dave Lindorff
In a couple of days, the so-called US Justice Department will be announcing an “agreement” reached with five large banks, including two of the largest in the US -- JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, the holding companies for Chase and Citibank -- under which these banks or bank holding companies will plead guilty to felonies involving the manipulation of international currency markets.
Child Soldier released from jail by Canadian court: US Still Seeks Jail for ‘Fighter’ Captured at 15 in Afghanistan
By Dave Lindorff
The good news is that an appellate judge in Canada has had the courage and good sense to uphold the release from jail on bail of Omar Khadr, a native of Canada who was captured as a child soldier at the age of 15 in Afghanistan by US forces back in 2002 and shipped off to Guantanamo, where he became one of the children held in captivity.
New poem: Manure Cannon
BAM!
Echo, like thunder off the shell of the sky-dome.
We, all on the terrace, glance at each other,
Jump to action.
Everyone knows what to do.
Grab something quick,
Black man warns his young grandson about the police: A Black Child Fears Cops more than Criminals
By Linn Washington, Jr.
I was seething inside as I watched the live television coverage of the recent rebellion/riot in Baltimore as we witnessed yet another explosion caused by America’s historic failures to reign in abusive police. Then I received a text message that lead to a conversation that absolutely broke my heart.
The conversation was with my 11-year-old grandson, who himself was seething from what he saw going on in his hometown of Baltimore.
My grandson told me he was mad…mad because police “keep killing black men.”
When I probed further into his anger he said he feared for his own life -– not because of what might happen when he gets older because of what could happen even now if he encountered a police officer.
40 years after Vietnam: Celebrating the End of One War, and Witnessing the Start of a New One Here at Home
By Dave Lindorff
It was 40 years ago today that the last troops from America’s criminal war against the people of Vietnam scurried ignominiously onto a helicopter on the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and fled the country where US forces had killed some 3-4 million people in the name of “fighting Communism.”
‘F*%king horrible’: The Public Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal?
By Linn Washington Jr.
In August 1936 nearly 20,000 excited spectators filled a vacant lot next to a municipal building in a small Kentucky town to watch the hanging of a man convicted of rape. That hanging would be the last public execution in America.
Keeping the Pentagon honest: 40 Years After the Liberation of Vietnam, Washington is Saying it was a US Victory and a Good War
By Dave Lindorff
In this podcast of the latest "This Can't Be Happening!" weekly broadcast on PRN.fm, ThisCantBeHappening.net collective member John Grant, a Vietnam War veteran and long-time peace activist, talks with show host Dave Lindorff about a Veterans for Peace campaign to counter the Pentagon's latest PR initiative to rewrite and distort the history of the Vietnam War. Grant says the VFP's Vietnam War Full Disclosure Project is calling out the Pentagon to correct the historical falsehoods in its multi-million-dollar 50th Year Commemoration of the Vietnam War propaganda program.
Did a “nickel ride” kill Freddie Gray?: Philadelphians Know All About Police Murder by Van Ride
By Dave Lindorff
Philadelphians don’t have any problem figuring out what happened to Freddie Gray, the 25-year old black man who died as a result of a severed spine at the neck while being transported in a police van by Baltimore Police.
Our rights are forgotten: The Government/Corporate Encryption Debate is About How Best to Spy on You
By Alfredo Lopez
A debate, going on in the quasi-private and well-catered halls of government-corporate collusion, has reached the post-smoldering stage. It's now a virtual forest fire in full public view.
It pits government spies against corporate cannibals and is about the often misunderstood and somewhat tedious issue of encryption.
Getting what’s been stolen by raising employer FICA tax : Time to Recover Productivity Gains Our Bosses Have Expropriating
By Dave Lindorff
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christy, trying to change the subject from his own shabby performance as governor, has called for $ billion in cuts to Social Security and Medicare, claiming it’s time for a “grownup discussion” of the alleged funding crisis facing both critically important programs.
Legacy of racism and colonialism targeted: Reparations Movements Meet to Make International Connections
By Linn Washington, Jr.
Dignitaries from three continents gathered in New York City recently to sharpen their strategies for confronting some of the world’s most powerful nations over a subject that sizable numbers of citizens support in the nearly two-dozen nations represented: reparations for the legacy of a history of slavery, colonialism and government-sanctioned segregation.
Real-time photo evidence of a cop planting evidence on his victim: Killer Cops like Officer Slager Must be Called to Account
By Dave Lindorff
Mumia’s specialized mistreatment: Emergency Illness Exposes Lies in Abu-Jamal Case
By Linn Washington, Jr.
The recent emergency hospitalization of Mumia Abu-Jamal arising from alarming failures to address his chronic illnesses has exposed the inaccuracy of an assertion long made by adversaries of this inmate whom many around the world consider a political prisoner.
His adversaries charge that Abu-Jamal receives special treatment in prison.
