Social Movements

Danny Glover and Cornel West

December 28, 2011
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Danny Glover and Cornel West are two of the leading voices in the 21st century American civil rights movement, a movement that is no longer primarily about race. The fundamental injustice that they are addressing affects us all, regardless of race or gender.  These two men (and many more like them) move America beyond race far more than the election of Obama does. And this contrast between, on the one hand, Glover and West speaking at the Occupy movements and, on the other, Obama speaking at the Martin Luther King memorial couldn’t be more striking. By representing and catering to…

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Dani Rodrik on economics

December 16, 2011
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Dani Rodrik, author of The Globalization Paradox and professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, wrote an interesting article on contemporary economics called Occupy the Classroom? which comments on the Harvard students who walked out of an economics class taught by Greg Mankiw. While the students complained that the introductory economics course “propagates conservative ideology in the guise of economic science and helps perpetuate social inequality,” Rodrik insists that it is only at the undergraduate level (or in media reports) that economics conveys that impression. In Rodrik’s view, that appearance of conservative ideology evaporates at the graduate level. Consider the following: “Let…

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Rocky Anderson for U.S. Justice Party

December 14, 2011
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Very interesting interview on Democracy Now:   A new political party has entered the fray as an alternative to Democrats and Republicans ahead of the 2012 elections. On Monday, the Justice Party formally kicked off its formation with an event in Washington. Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson will run for president on the Justice Party ticket. Although hailing from a solidly red state, Rocky Anderson has been known as one of the most progressive mayors of any major U.S. city in recent years. During his two mayoral terms from 2000 to 2008, Anderson was an outspoken champion of…

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Highs and lows in American politics

November 9, 2011
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Four remarkable individuals (Amy Goodman, Michael Moore, Cornel West, and Chris Hedges) have really stood out lately in providing a coherent analysis of the Occupy Wall Street movement and an understanding of the social and political crisis that caused it.  Here are two moving interviews worth watching: 1) Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges on Charlie Rose; 2) Cornel West and Michael Moore on Democracy Now. At the extreme other end of the spectrum, Ed Lee has just recently released this politic ad for his election campaign, demonstrating the depths to which American politics can sink:  

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Anonymous exposes the pedophiles

November 1, 2011
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Apparently the latest Operation Darknet by the (in)famous Hacker Collective Anonymous, known for its support of the whistle-blower platform Wikileaks and the Occupy Movement, took matters into their own hands and succeeded where the police and FBI failed. During Operation Darknet Anonymous hunted for darknets (hidden networks only visible for their members) and this time revealed one of the biggest sharing platforms for child pornography ever discovered. Staying true to their manifesto, they published all user data they could unveil and subsequently killed the platform. This case is especially interesting because one of the main mantras and characteristics of the group Anonymous was broken…

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Responding to corporate crime

October 31, 2011
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According to this article in the Hankyoreh, the Fair Trade Commission of Korea recently fined 10 corporations in Korea and Taiwan, including Samsung and LG, a total of $176 million for conspiring to fix prices and delivery quantities. The conspiracy was conducted by firms that control 80% of the global LCD market. The group of firms conspired to set the timings of product price increases and price differences.  This is of course just the latest (and by no means the most egregious) example of corporations seeking to maximize profits at the public’s expense. Ignoring these abuses only guarantees that they…

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Is it immoral to vote for Obama?

October 15, 2011
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Mike Whitney’s answer is “yes,” and he seems to me to be right. This is an extremely clear and concise description of the most important moral dilemma  facing every American with a conscience. It’s a must-read for all Americans.

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The Occupy Wall Street Movement

October 14, 2011
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John Nichols, writing in The Nation, provides a nice analysis of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. My only criticism is that Nichols seems to understand it as mostly an American movement. Wall Street may be, as he says, the right target for Americans to address, but Wall Street is ultimately just a part of something broader, something that has no geographic boundaries, namely,  global capitalism. Laurie Penny, speaking on Democracy Now, said that:  “What I found fascinating, being at Wall Street, is how similar it is to protests that I’ve seen in London over the past 6 months. And I’ve talked…

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Video: A Farm for the Future

August 9, 2011
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The BBC describes the documentary A Farm for the Future as follows: Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family’s wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land. But last year’s high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just…

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