Occupy Phoenixville/Phoenixville Films for Action joins Occupy Norristown and Ursinus We CAN (Care About the Nation) for a free screening of Gasland, an award-winning documentary about the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing used by the natural gas industry.
This movie and website is making the rounds lately, so I thought I'd take a closer look. As a bioregionalist, I found myself asking a series of questions about what I found. So in the spirit of the website's admonition "not to take on, unquestioningly, a new set of beliefs," I share this review with the reader.
Rachel Maddow hosted her MSNBC show at Free State Brewery on Wednesday, discussing current national and state issues, such as union rights and abortion rights. Maddow said she has been following the ethics hearings of former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.
A proposed amendment being debated in the Kansas Legislature would prohibit undocumented immigrants from being eligible for in-state tuition. This ammendment would deprive innocent children brought to the United States through no choice of their own the opportunity for higher education.
Obama's lengthy and detailed national security address was designed, in part, to tamp down criticism that his administration was abandoning core promises and constitutional principles. But while early reviews of the president's speech among members of the press were adulatory, the people Obama most needed to placate were decidedly unimpressed."Obviously, he is a very effective speaker, but of...
Three facts show that the government "fixed the facts" regarding 9/11 around a policy decision to exonerate the government from any blame whatsoever.1. 9/11 Commission's Chief Counsel says Official Story "Almost Entirely Untrue . . . There Was an Agreement Not to Tell the Truth about What Happened" As Daily Kos notes in a recent recommended story, the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission - John...
Reading Obama's letter explaining his stance on the release of the Bush era torture memos should serve as an alarming wake-up call to those who believe we just "need to give Obama more time." More and more, the mantra of the government-sponsored slogan, "change we can believe in," becomes just more platitudes and posturing. It sure beats, "Bring 'em on!" But the outcome is pretty much the same.
Human rights organizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million - mostly Black and Hispanic - are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They...
Amnesty International USA just launched its Protect the Human campaign to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They've got a fantastic site up where you can view Amnesty's films and photos, learn about human rights issues, read up on the UDHR, tell your story using an interactive Google map, and take action on these issues.Check out the Protect...
The United States is ranked 36th in the world in terms of press freedom, up from 48th last year, according to a report released Wednesday by Reporters Sans Frontieres.The US is tied with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, South Africa, Spain, and Taiwan in the 36th spot. Iceland, Luxembourg, and Norway are tied for first. Iran, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea are all featured among the ten...
Take 30 minutes and watch this timely review of events just this past week in an interview with Naomi Wolf -- if you're new to much of this information, it may seem unbelievable, but her analysis is critical in understanding the significance of what is now quickly unfolding. *Update: See the article after the jump for more: "Thousands of Troops Are Deployed on U.S. Streets Ready to Carry Out...
Can anyone really own water? That was the questions that got French filmmaker Irena Salina inspired to take on a mammoth project -- chronicling the global water crisis and solutions -- from privatization to politics to pollution. Her creation, the award-winning film "FLOW: For Love of Water," was a Sundance hit and now is making its theatrical debut in theaters across the country. Her...
So far, the Olympics have been an open invitation to China-bash, a bottomless excuse for Western journalists to go after the Commies on everything from internet censorship to Darfur. Through all the nasty news stories, however, the Chinese government has seemed amazingly unperturbed. That’s because it is betting on this: once the opening ceremonies have begun, you will instantly...
As westerners revel in designer lattes and cappuccinos, impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers suffer the bitter taste of injustice. In this eye-opening expose of the multi-billion dollar coffee industry, Black Gold traces one man's fight for a fair price.
Forty years ago today, on April 4, 1968, a sniper assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King had come to Memphis, Tennessee, to aid striking sanitation workers. The preeminent civil rights leader of his time, he was only 39 years old.Four decades have passed since that fateful day. As of this month, Dr. King has been gone from us longer than he was ever here. As we pass this milestone in...
The CIA held Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in several different cells when he was incarcerated in its network of secret prisons known as "black sites." But the small cells were all pretty similar, maybe 7 feet wide and 10 feet long. He was sometimes naked, and sometimes handcuffed for weeks at a time. In one cell his ankle was chained to a bolt in the floor. There was a small toilet. In another...
Like Kissinger before him, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has gotten away with committing war crimes. It's time to bring him to court.