Bradley Manning Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
Source: Abode of Chaos (CC)
It’ll be fascinating to see how this plays out because it’s such an unusual choice. Normally you have to commit tens of thousands of armed troops to Afghanistan before you go home with one of these babies. From the blog of Birgitta Jónsdóttir:
[On] February 1st 2012 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world.
Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
We have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the…
No More Taco Bell Until Abortion Ends (Video)
Site editor’s note: if you have been following this political/internet/media explosion you may find this recent story posted to disinfo.com in December as an interesting footnote to the outcome.
These people will enjoy no more burritos until unborn babies are no longer terminated. Until Abortion Ends is a perplexing and to some extent inadvertently amusing trend in which people pledge to give up various things “until abortion ends”. (Although I assume they actually mean “until abortion becomes criminalized”.)
Ex-Marine Reoccupies His Own Foreclosed Home
There seems to be a trend by the Big Banks- wherein they resist all attempts to modify mortgages and commence foreclosure proceedings without justification. Private Property- what does it truly mean in a capitalist system? Via Democracy Now :
Anonymous Reveals The Arcane Legal Trick Behind ACTA
Anonymous exposes the nefarious goals of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Thanks to Christopher Neitzert for the tip.
“Greetings, world. We are Anonymous.
We are here to reveal to you an arcane legal trick, which will be used to take away your freedom starting in June 2012…
The Megapocalypse Of Kim DotCom
Via Modern Mythology (by P. Emerson Williams)
An operation planned by a large international team of law enforcement working over the course of years and carried out with helicopters and machine guns in a military style raid. Taking refuge in a safe room, reportedly found “near a semi-automatic shotgun”, a larger than life villain is dragged out and taken into custody.
Photo: Andreas Bohnenstengel (CC)
No, the target is not a drug kingpin, nor a deposed dictator (hence the safe room – sewage drains are reserved final hiding places for deposed dictators and jihadist masterminds), not a banker responsible for tearing the world economy apart, nor a corrupt Western politician on the leash of said bankers.
Much hay has been made of Kim Dotcom’s expansive mansion, expensive toys and cheesy movie villain antics. For those wondering why Megaupload was the target this fact alone should make it clear. They needed someone who would not invoke sympathy,…
Anonymous Attacks Monsanto (Video)
Via the Earth First! Newswire:
Anonymous, which briefly knocked the FBI and Justice Department websites offline as well as Music Industry websites in retaliation for the US shutdown of file-sharing site Megaupload, is a shadowy group of amazing international hackers.
Let’s Be Clear, Ron Paul Fucking Sucks. Here Are 20 Reasons Why
Before admirers of Representative Paul go crazy, I didn’t write this post (or the headline) and I don’t endorse it (neither does disinformation), but I am interested in your well argued debate as to whether or not the little red umbrella author is right about any (or all?) of his points:
Every single one of the candidates currently running for the Republican nomination is a walking disaster. But one of them, Texas congressman Ron Paul, seems to be getting a disturbing amount of support from liberals. Mostly that’s because his nut-job libertarian views happen to not sound so nutty on a handful of issues. He wants to end the War on Drugs. He is against the death penalty. He would not support a constitutional ban on gay marriage. He was opposed to the War in Iraq and wants to end all American military intervention abroad. All of that sounds pretty good to…
UK Undercover Police Had Children With Activists They Were Spying On
Bob Lambert. Photo: CSTPV
Paul Lewis and Rob Evans report for the Guardian:
Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from the lives of their offspring, the Guardian can reveal.
In both cases, the children have grown up not knowing that their biological fathers – whom they have not seen in decades – were police officers who had adopted fake identities to infiltrate activist groups. Both men have concealed their true identities from the children’s mothers for many years.
One of the spies was Bob Lambert, who has already admitted that he tricked a second woman into having a long-term relationship with him, as part of an intricate attempt to bolster his credibility as a committed campaigner.
The second police spy followed the progress of his child and the child’s mother by reading confidential police reports which tracked the mother’s political activities and…
Polish Lawmaker Smokes Pot in Parliament
Photo: Peterson (CC)
If Ron Paul or Barney Frank did something like this, I’d be a little bit more inclined to support them, especially concerning presidential bids … Reports Agence France-Presse via the RAW Story:
Janusz Palikot, the leader of a new party which brought in Poland’s first trans-gender and openly gay MPs, launched a drive Friday to legalise marijuana by smoking pot in parliament.
“This is the weed,” he told reporters in his office in the lower house of parliament, lighting up a large incense joint containing what he said was a legal quantity of marijuana.
Palikot said his party had submitted a bill to legalise marijuana.
Earlier on Friday, the philosophy graduate known for his flamboyant political stunts, caused a stir when he announced he would “light up” in parliament.
“I want to condemn the hypocrisy concerning marijuana consumption,” Palikot told reporters. “Someone said they would smoke a joint in parliament and the reaction…
Bank Of America ATMs Altered To Become ‘Truth Machines’
San Francisco’s Rainforest Action Network altered 85 Bank of America ATMs around the city last week using sticker overlays, so that the machines would notify users of what their money is being used for. Bankrupting America has a handy map of the affected/improved ATMs.
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The Internet is a ‘Series of Tubes’; RIP Senator Ted Stevens, Americans Elect These F-ing People …
Stupid People Freaking Out About the Great (Intended) Wikipedia Blackout of 2012
To be expected, and I think Gawker has found some of the best ones:
Youth is no excuse … I call the members of this generation (and their educators) who are so confused, the WikiStupid.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: ‘Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam’
On the date on his birth, let’s focus on matters that make the U.S. holiday matter even more:
Whither Environmentalism?
Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez writes at Common Dreams:
In the latest issue of Orion Magazine, environmental activists Derrick Jensen and Paul Kingsnorth both express their frustrations with the current environmental movement.
Jensen takes movement organizers to task for their drift towards actions that are “fun and sexy.” ”The fact that so many people routinely call for environmentalism to be more fun and more sexy reveals not only the weakness of our movement but also the utter lack of seriousness with which even many activists approach the problems we face,” he says bitterly. “When it comes to stopping the murder of the planet, too many environmentalists act more like they’re planning a party than building a movement.”
But let’s face it, there are a lot of people on this planet who find the issues addressed by environmentalism just too scary and depressing to deal with. The environmentalist party-planners are trying to reach these folks, who…
The A-Z Of Occupation
Every social movement I have been involved with, or covered as a journalist, develops its own language of liberation, its own alphabet, and its own buzzwords, rhetoric and discourse.
Here are some of the key words I heard/retained in covering the Occupy Wall Street movement. I am sure there are many words, phrases, and slogans I overlooked, never heard or forgot. Send your favorites to: dissector@mediachannel.org.
These are words that power a struggle and speak to the internal processes that attracted so many to take part, as well as the issues that drive it and the obstacles that face it. They are some of the phrases, terms, sayings and expressions that the occupiers use in their conversations to define themselves and discuss their mission.
A. Adbusters, Anarchy, Arrest, Activist, Action, Anger, Angry, Atrium, Assembly (Freedom of,) Arab Spring, Autonomy, Anonymous. All Night, All Week, Austerity, Autumn Awakening.
B. Bloomberg, Billionaire, Banker, Bank Transfer, Bankster,…
How Should OccupyWallStreet Spend Its $300,000?
Hopefully they make wiser decisions now. As Alison Bowen reports in Metro New York:
Nearly two months after the NYPD raided Zuccotti Park, Occupy Wall Street protesters are now deciding how to spend $300,000 left in their coffers.
At a recent meeting, protesters debated what to do with the money, down from $706,855 at the movement’s peak, according to the New York Post. Much of that $700K came via online donations from OWS supporters and has already been spent on food and supplies.
The remaining OWS members meet daily at the atrium at 60 Wall Street. During one such meeting, the Post reported, one of the ideas pitched included burning the cash in a bonfire on Wall Street, a suggestion that has since been dropped.
The Industry of Hunger
Photo: Tawheed Manzoor (CC)
Vandana Shiva on Al Jazeera English explains how, as mega-chains venture into industrial farming, they have created an epidemic of hunger- and generated billions in profit.
New Delhi, India – In November 2011, when the UPA government announced that it had cleared the entry of big retail chains such as Walmart and Tesco into India through 51 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, it justified the decision saying that FDI in retail would boost food security and benefit farmers’ livelihoods.
But the assurance that FDI in retail would ease inflation did not resolve the political crisis the government was facing; it deepened it. Parliament was stalled for several days of the Winter Session, after which the government was forced to withdraw its decision.
The story of FDI in retail goes back to 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agriculture agreement with the US, along with…
