Report concludes British riots provoked by police brutality and poverty ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS Comments Off Dec 182011 By Julie Hyland, WSWS.ORG The first comprehensive investigation into the riots that swept London and other parts of England in August has confirmed that police brutality, poverty and social inequality were the primary motivating factors in their eruption. The “Reading the Riots” study was undertaken by the Guardian newspaper and the London School of Economics (LSE) following the government’s refusal to establish an independent inquiry into the inner-city disturbances. It is the only report based on evidence gathered from those who were directly involved in the events. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Three more jailed for Facebook comments on UK summer riots ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, EU.Britain, POLICE & REPRESSION Comments Off Dec 182011 By Steve James, WSWS.ORG Two teenagers from Dundee, Scotland, and a 22-year-old man from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, in England, were imprisoned for years for statements posted on the social media site Facebook at the time of riots in English cities last summer. Shawn Divin, 16, and Jordan McGinley, 19, were both arrested in August. The pair, along with two other teenagers from Dundee, had posted to a Facebook event page, “Riot in the Toon,” of which they were administrators. Danny Cook from Kidderminster created his own page, “Letz Start a Riot”. LEFT: The law does not apply to rightwing celebrity idiots like Jeremy Clarkson. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Pigs, cows, and chickens are (also) the 99 percent, says animal rights activist ANIMAL DEFENDERS, ANIMAL MARTYRDOM, ANNOTATED NEWS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS Comments Off Dec 182011 December 17, 2011 By Tom Over Though the products of their bodies seem to be just about every place where we expect to find food, these members of the 99 percent suffer mostly out of sight and out of mind to the omnivore general public. These animals don’t get pepper-sprayed or arrested at protests but spend their entire lives in jail or— as some animal liberationists say— in concentration camps. They need humans to speak up for their rights. Sarah Von Alt, an animal rights activist working with Mercy For Animals supports the Occupy Movement. “MFA stands in solidarity with anyone who works to help animals, and I appreciate that the Occupy movement has included animals in its Official Declaration of the Occupation of New York City — specifically that corporate interests have ‘profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.’” Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
The Fracking Industry Has Bought Off Congress: Here Are the Worst Offenders (VIDEO) ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, SAVING THE PLANET Comments Off Dec 182011 By Scott Thill, AlterNet Actually, they have bought off the ENTIRE political class of the United States, especially governors, and that includes New York’s Andrew Cuomo, who like other Democrats, likes to present himself as a “progressive.” —Eds Environmentalists and other well-adjusted citizens of Earth, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that, thanks to illuminating documentaries like Josh Fox’s Gasland and determined pressure from activists in and out of the mainstream, the toxic ravages of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, are no longer the shale gas sector’s dirty secret. The bad news is that, thanks to the United States’ morally bankrupt political system and its Supreme Court’s reality-defying ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the fracking lobby’s power of the purse is greater than it has ever been. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
The Making of the American 99% ANNOTATED NEWS Comments Off Dec 182011 And the Collapse of the Middle Class By BARBARA EHRENREICH AND JOHN EHRENREICH “Class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs.”– E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class The “other men” (and of course women) in the current American class alignment are those in the top 1% of the wealth distribution — the bankers, hedge-fund managers, and CEOs targeted by the Occupy Wall Street movement. They have been around for a long time in one form or another, but they only began to emerge as a distinct and visible group, informally called the “super-rich,” in recent years. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Reckless Endangerment: Totally Corrupt America ANNOTATED NEWS, FINANCE CAPITAL, GOVERNMENT CRIMES Comments Off Dec 182011 By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTSFrom our Archives— Last March I reviewed Matt Taibbi’s important book Griftopia, an entertaining account of the through-going financial fraud that gave us the financial crisis. Taibbi shows that the US “superpower” can match any third world backwater in the magnitude of greed and fraud that is endemic in business and government. Taibbi’s Griftopia was published last year. This year Henry Holt publishers have provided us with Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner’s Reckless Endangerment. Morgenson and Rosner tell the story again, but with less drama and provocation. Possibly, it might be more acceptable to those gullible Americans who wrap themselves in the flag and refuse to believe that their country could ever knowingly do anything that is wrong. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
Why Should We Care About Mexico? ANNOTATED NEWS, LatinAm-MEXICO Comments Off Dec 182011 The Dangers of “Exaggerated Risk Assessment” on the Border by LAURA CARLSEN A map purporting to show the drug cartels’ turfs and the “open” (for grabs) territories, in white. The cold, hard numbers of the poor and the dead are familiar. Instead we are told that we should care—or rather, worry—about Mexico for a very different reason. The State Department, the Pentagon, the press and members of Congress tell us, with increasing shrillness, that Mexico poses a major threat to U.S. national security. Continue reading » Did you like this? Share it:
