Month: January 2018

Source: The Guardian

Imprisoned leaker and activist confirms plan to run as a Democrat in Maryland with video hashtagged #WeGotThis, saying: ‘We need someone willing to fight’

After seven years in military prison for carrying out one of the largest leaks in US history and coming out as a transgender woman, Chelsea Manning is embarking on the next stage in her epic journey: running for a seat in the US Senate.

The former US army private, who was held in military lockup for far longer than any other official leaker in modern times, has declared in a federal filing her intention to run in this year’s Democratic primaries for a Maryland Senate seat. Now 30, she confirmed she was entering the race in a video posted on Twitter on Sunday under her now established internet trademark #WeGotThis. read more

Source: The Intercept

Five years ago, when 350.org helped kick off the global fossil fuel divestment movement, one of the slogans the team came up with was “We > Fossil Fuels.”

The T-shirts and stickers were nice, but I have to admit that I never really felt it. Bigger than fossil fuels? With their bottomless budgets? Their endless capacity to blanket the airwaves and bankroll political parties? The slogan always made me kind of sad.

Well, yesterday in New York City, listening to Mayor Bill de Blasio announce that the city had just filed a lawsuit against five oil majors and intended to divest $5 billion from fossil fuel companies, I actually felt it. After being outgunned by the power and wealth of this industry for so many years, the balance of power seemed to physically tilt. It’s still not equal — not by a long shot — but something big changed nonetheless. Regular humans may not be more powerful than the fossil fuel companies now — but we might be soon. read more

Source: In These Times

IN SPRING 2016, a U.S. presidential candidate made the above prediction to Businessweek. That candidate was none other than Donald Trump, and he was speaking of the GOP. His words seem ludicrous, but Trump’s anti-corruption pose, populism and vaguely left-sounding economic rhetoric would ultimately take him all the way to the White House.

Trump was also openly racist, misogynistic and unencumbered by facts. But he foregrounded economic decline and corruption—and the tight link between them—with a rhetorical force and consistency that always eluded his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. read more