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After The Fog (of War): An Interview with Independent Filmmaker Jay Craven

Rob Williams March 2, 2006 Rob Williams

This month - March - marks the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. 2,500 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the line of duty, while countless Iraqis, many of them women and children, have lost their lives. It seems fitting to stop and reflect on the meaning of U.S. wars with those who have served in them, and a new film called "After The Fog," co-produced by Jay Craven, does just this. Stitching together the personal testimony of 11 U.S. war veterans, "After The Fog" is an intimate and human look at the consequences of war, told by those who fought.

Why Are There So Many Radicals in New Orleans?

Owen Thompson March 1, 2006 Owen Thompson

In my two weeks volunteering with the anarchist-friendly Common Ground Collective this past January, I met a lot of people who considered themselves progressives, radicals, and/or anarchists, enough to make it clear that a lot of them saw their sociopolitical views as having some connection to their volunteer work in New Orleans. That work consisted (and consists, as Common Ground will continue to drawn in hundreds and maybe thousands of new and returning volunteers in the coming months) mostly of gutting houses for residents of the devastated Ninth Ward and other impoverished areas, but also of providing medical services, distributing supplies (food, clothing, hygienic products, cleaning supplies, etc.), and doing outreach in an attempt to help the community organize its response to the city's controversial rebuilding plan.

In the Name of the War on Terror: Bolivian Human Rights Leader Barred from Entering the U.S.

Benjamin Dangl February 28, 2006 Benjamin Dangl

Leonida Zurita Vargas, a Bolivian coca farmer organizer and alternate Senator, was planning to be in the US right now as part of a three week speaking tour on Bolivian social movements and human rights.This tour would take her to Vermont, Harvard, Stanford and Washington DC. However, upon checking in at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia on February 20th to fly to the US, she was informed her ten year visa had been revoked because of alleged links to terrorist activity.

WINDS OF CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS CONFERENCE

Super User February 28, 2006 Super User

What?
WINDS OF CHANGE IN THE AMERICAS CONFERENCE

Why?
-Our keynote speaker, Leonida Zurita Vargas, is an indigenous woman from Bolivia, a coca farmer and powerful grassroots leader who will shed light on Bolivia’s strong and growing social movements and recent election of a new government under Aymara indigenous President Evo Morales. (See below update on Leonida who was, last week, denied entry to the US by the US embassy that has outrageously suggested that Leonida has ties to terrorist organziations! IF WE CAN’T GET LEONIDA HERE IN PERSON SHE’LL BE ON THE PHONE!) George Ann Potter, Zurita’s political advisor, will be talking at the conference as well as translating and introducing Leonida. read more

To all activists now and in the future

Ashley Lucas February 27, 2006 Ashley Lucas

I woke up this morning in my grandmother’s house in the middle of the farmlands of rural west Texas. I drove alone through miles of cotton fields and watched the men on John Deere tractors harvesting this year’s crop. They carve intricate patterns in the red earth as they strip the white puffs of cotton. Miles of these fields surround the prison where my father is being held. He can see little else beyond the fences and concertina wire, so the planting and harvesting of the fields provide some of the only non-prison activity in view. read more

Jarhead Nation

Jerry Lembcke February 23, 2006 Jerry Lembcke

Commenting on films nominated for this year's Academy Awards on his February 5, 2006 show, Chris Matthews noted that films are important for what they say about the times in which they are made. For example, Good Night and Good Luck, he said, is about the current Bush Administration's attempts to suppress the truth of governmental malfeasance, even though the film is set in the McCarthyite climate of the 1950s. Munich, he observed, speaks to our on-going anxiety about national security even though its story is about the Olympic Games of 1972 and the events that followed.