Global News and Analysis

Source: The Nation

I was honored to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night. Since amplification is (disgracefully) banned, and everything I say will have to be repeated by hundreds of people so others can hear (a k a “the human microphone”), what I actually say at Liberty Plaza will have to be very short. With that in mind, here is the longer, uncut version of the speech.

I love you.

And I didn’t just say that so that hundreds of you would shout “I love you” back, though that is obviously a bonus feature of the human microphone. Say unto others what you would have them say unto you, only way louder. read more

As the Occupy Wall Street protest enters its twentieth day, New York City’s most powerful unions are set to march today from City Hall to the movement’s encampment in the Financial District. The demonstration will be bolstered by the walkout of potentially thousands of students at major public universities in New York City where tuition rates are on the rise. Meanwhile, similar “occupation” movements are springing up in cities around the country. On Tuesday, the Greater Boston Labor Council, representing 154 unions with 90,000 workers, supported the Occupy Boston encampment for shining “a spotlight on the imbalance of power in our nation and the role that Wall Street has played in devastating our economy.” We host a discussion about whether the Occupy Wall Street movement is sparking a diverse, grassroots movement for economic change. We’re joined by Kai Wright, contributor to The Nation magazine and editorial director of ColorLines.com, where he wrote “Here’s to Occupying Wall Street! (If Only That Were Actually Happening).” We also speak with Arun Gupta, an editor with of The Indypendent, and of “The Occupied Wall Street Journal,” a newspaper affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement, where he published an article titled, “The Revolution Begins at Home.” read more

Source: Tom Dispatch

The United States has long styled itself a Pacific power. It established the model of counterinsurgency in the Philippines in 1899 and defeated the Japanese in World War II. It faced down the Chinese and the North Koreans to keep the Korean peninsula divided in 1950, and it armed the Taiwanese to the teeth. Today, America maintains the most powerful military in the Pacific region, supported by a constellation of military bases, bilateral alliances, and about 100,000 service personnel. read more

Source: The Guardian

A Brazilian judge has ordered construction to be suspended on a controversial hydroelectric dam in the Amazon.

In his ruling, Judge Carlos Castro Martins said that all working on the Belo Monte dam that interfered with the natural course of the Xingu river should be halted because of the risk that fish stocks would be damaged.

The £7bn dam would reputedly be the third largest in the world, after China’s Three Gorges and the Itaipu project on the Brazil-Paraguay border. read more

Source: Democracy Now!

The “Occupy Wall Street” protests in the financial district took a dramatic turn on Saturday when protesters tried to march across the Brooklyn Bridge. When police arrested 700 of the demonstrators, the event quickly turned into one of the largest arrests of non-violent protesters in recent history. Some protesters claim police lured them onto oncoming traffic on the bridge’s roadway; others said they did not hear instructions from police telling them to use the pedestrian walkway. Meanwhile, similar “Occupation” protests have spread to other cities, including Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, where hundreds of protesters are now camped out in front of City Hall. We host a roundtable discussion with Marisa Holmes, an organizer with the main organizing group of Occupy Wall Street, called the General Assembly, Marina Sitrin, an attorney who is part of Occupy Wall Street’s legal working group, and Laurie Penny, a writer and journalist who reported on protests in London earlier this summer. read more