After NATO: From Chicago Spring to Occupy Summer and Beyond
A look back on the NATO protests, Chicago Spring, and the current state and trajectory of the Occupy movement, its vast challenges and seemingly infinite possibilities.
Month: June 2012
Daniel Berrigan: America’s Street Priest
Source: TruthDig.com
The Rev. Daniel Berrigan, undaunted at 92 and full of the fire that makes him one of this nation’s most courageous voices for justice, stands in New York City’s Zuccotti Park. He is there, along with other clergy, to ask Trinity Church, which is the third-largest landowner in Manhattan, to drop charges against Occupy activists, including retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard, for occupying its empty lot on 6th Avenue and Canal Street on Dec. 17. The protesters, slated to go to court Monday, June 11, hoped to establish a new Liberty Squareon the lot after being evicted by New York City police from Zuccotti in November. But Trinity had the demonstrators arrested. It chose to act like a real estate company, or the corporation it has become, rather than a church. And its steadfast refusal to drop the charges means that many of those arrested, including Packard, could spend as long as three months in jail.
House GOP Blocking Abortion Access for Raped Soldiers
Source: Mother Jones
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) wants to expand access to abortion for servicewomen who are raped. Only a few Republicans are willing to help.
Republican Senators John McCain, Scott Brown, and Susan Collins all support an effort by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, to expand abortion access for military women who are raped. But despite bipartisan support in the Senate, Shaheen’s proposal may not make it into the final version of the 2013 defense authorization bill—because House Republicans oppose it.
Chomsky: Somebody Else’s Atrocities
Opposing the International Olympic Committee’s newly formed partnership with Dow Chemical, dissenters illuminate a history of human rights oversights.
The War on Palestinian Soccer: Free Mahmoud Sarsak
On June 3, Palestinian national soccer team member Mahmoud Sarsak completed 80 days of a grueling hunger-strike. He had sustained the strike despite the fact that nearly 2,000 Palestinian inmates had called off their own 28-day hunger strike weeks ago.
How the Wisconsin Uprising Got Hijacked
Source: TomDispatch.com
The revelers watched in stunned disbelief, cocktails in hand, dressed for a night to remember. On the big-screen TV a headline screamed in crimson red: “Projected Winner: Scott Walker.” It was 8:49 p.m. In parts of Milwaukee, people learned that news networks had declared Wisconsin’s governor the winner while still in line to cast their votes. At the election night party for Walker’s opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, supporters talked and cried and ordered more drinks. Barrett soon took the stage to concede, then waded into the crowd where a distraught woman slapped him in the face.