Month: September 2016

Source: The Intercept

The “Commander-in-Chief Forum” with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that NBC’s Matt Lauer moderated Wednesday night was billed as a way to interrogate the presidential candidates on substantive veterans’ and national security issues.

But from the questions chosen to the format, the event served as little more than a class on how not to hold the candidates accountable.

In the 25 minutes devoted to Clinton, nearly half was spent by Lauer grilling her about her use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state (one veteran also asked about the issue). That left little room for questions on policies she presided over while in office. read more

Source: Roar Magazine

Four years after South Africa’s bloodiest post-apartheid massacre, in which dozens of striking miners were killed by police, a fresh memory of Marikana is needed.

Marikana is remembered around the world as a moment of sorrow in which 34 black South African mineworkers were killed by police on August 16, 2012. But on its own, this memory can obscure a much more promising vision of direct democracy and rank-and-file organizing that eventually changed the course of modern South African politics. The massacre culminated in the longest strike in South African mining history and possibly the longest strike in the world in the year 2014. read more

Source: The Guardian

No issue better connects the environment to people’s lives than energy. In order to deliver clean, affordable electricity we need to change our undemocratic system of supply

We are on course for a climate catastrophe. 2016 is set to be the hottest year on record. Unless the Paris agreement’s target of limiting the rise in temperatures by 1.5C is met, heatwaves like that in 2003, which killed tens of thousands of people in Europe, will become the norm. And that is before considering rising sea levels and desertification that will sink cities, and kill and displace millions, or the fact that the Earth has already lost half its wildlife in the past 40 years. read more