Would love to see US news agencies investigating and breaking down the underlying issues of #OccupyWallStreet & the 99% movement — consolidation of wealth and political power — like the Guardian does here, instead of incessantly asking us where we go to the bathroom.
American intelligence officers have been so focused on tracking individual terrorists in failing states since 9/11 that they failed to predict the popular uprisings that have all but swept away decades of contacts and cooperation.
According to Newsweek, the changes that have accompanied the Arab Spring in the Middle East and across North Africa. have been an unwelcome surprise to US intelligence agents who have lost not only local allies, but unrestricted access.
Egypt was the first to go and by some accounts it will be the most-missed. It was there that for 30 years the CIA could hand over anyone it wished to General Omar Suleiman for a quick and effective interrogation. In Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, intelligence officers are struggling to retain their footing.
The situation has become a genuine concern among experts in the region. One senior intelligence officer, who refuses to be named, says: "All this celebration of democracy is just bullshit. You take the lid off and you don't know what's going to happen. I think disaster is lurking."
Spreading democracy was for Iraq, stupid. Get your damned dirty hippie hands off our tried-and-true torture networks!
MoveOn National Field Organizers build and develop the massive grassroots network we need to win progressive change. By combining traditional person-to-person organizing, scalable online organizing, and intensive leadership development, we're creating a new model of grassroots mobilization. It's volunteer-driven, staff-lean and exceptionally powerful. Our small team of staff organizers is at the center of creating and driving our organizing program that has a major impact on key progressive issues.
...With nearly 5 million members, MoveOn is uniquely situated to organize for real progressive change. In 2010, MoveOn members played a key role in the historic victory winning health care reform, and we launched a major campaign to take our democracy back from the corporate influence. Now, we're getting ready to launch a major campaigns in 2011 to fight for the American Dream.
The backbone of the field effort is the MoveOn Councils-a national network of committed, trained volunteer leaders and teams. Nationally, there are 16,000 active leaders organized into nearly 200 city-wide Councils. Over the next year, MoveOn Council volunteers will organize rallies, vigils, protests, petitions, district meetings, and other creative tactics, and build local member leadership on a scale we've never built it before.
On a personal note, I worked for MoveOn for about two years, first as a national field organizer and then as a lead organizer. It was a very good experience for me — it's a staff-positive and professional organization. And they get a lot done.
MARMET, WV - June 6 - Appalachia Rising: March on Blair Mountain kicked off this morning with a press conference at the Marmet Baseball field. Hundreds of participants rallied and community members called for the abolition of mountaintop removal, the protection of Blair Mountain, the strengthening of labor rights, and a transition to a sustainable economy in Appalachia. Hundreds of participants began their peaceful trek to Blair Mountain at approximately 10:15 a.m.
Check out this powerful new video about Bradley Manning:
Please share this video. Bradley Manning's situation raises critically important issues about the nature of government, democracy, and U.S. policy:
The Wikileaks revelations have given us the real truth about our wars, helped fuel democratic revolts in the Arab world, changed journalism forever... When did exposing the truth become a crime in America?
The video briefly features President Obama saying, "I know a little bit about whistle-blowing and making sure those folks get protection."
It ends by calling Manning a hero, and exhorting the viewer to action: "What happens next is up to you."
I just finished Eli Pariser's new book The Filter Bubble — a must-read for anyone working for progressive change.
Eli discusses how "personalization" by Google, Facebook et al is putting us more and more out of touch with each other, even threatening the very idea of a "public". From the introduction:
Democracy requires citizens to see things from one another's point of view, but instead we're more and more enclosed in our own bubbles. Democracy requires a reliance on shared facts; instead we're being offered parallel but separate universes.
Web personalization is partly the result of cultural trends since around 1968 for our increasingly self-expressive society to self-segregate into new identities. But instead of technology mitigating this fractionalizing trend, the technology of personalization is injecting the trend with steroids.
Kevin Drum states the obvious—that Fox News is not objective—with an interesting emphasis. Fox is part of the infrastructure of a social movement. He compares CNN's coverage of a "Tea Party" tax day rallies—which covered the rallies on the day of the events, and a little the next day—with Fox "coverage" which served to promote and build the events.
Fox views its job as rallying its base, not as simply providing them with news. I don't think anyone will be especially surprised to hear that, but this is an interesting lens for understanding the difference between how a news organization covers the news and how an activist organization like Fox covers the news.
Read the full post and view the accompanying graph at Mother Jones.
Interesting that most the stories that come up when I google "Greece general strike" are from financial news outlets. This from RTTNews:
A 24-hour nation-wide general strike called by workers unions in Greece in protest against the strict austerity measures implemented by the government paralyzed life in the EU-member nation on Wednesday.
Thousands of public and private sector workers responded to the call for general strike by boycotting work on Wednesday, disrupting public services and paralyzing transport services. Schools and universities remained closed across the country and almost all train and ferry services were suspended.
Interesting how little biases creep into stories like this:
...protest against the austerity measures turned violent, forcing the police to use water cannons and teargas shells to disperse agitated protesters. [my emphasis]
Police are forced to violence out of self-defense and defense of the public order, while people (aka the public) protesting austerity are framed as the aggressors. What about the International Monetary Fund? They're just benevolently supplying a "110-billion-euro bailout package."
At least a fairly decent list of grievances is offered (without even throwing out the word "entitlements"):
The general strike was organized to protest against the job losses, tax increase as well as pension and wage cuts caused by the austerity measures already adopted by the Greek government, in line with an international bailout package availed last year. The unions claim that the austerity measures have failed to address the country's financial crisis.
I just finished Eli Pariser's new book The Filter Bubble — a must-read for anyone working for progressive change.