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We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs

Melody Zagami February 9, 2006 Melody Zagami

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet." - Iranian Born Poet, Rumi

Nine centuries after Rumi penned these words, young Iranians post blogs to express themselves in a nation where drinking liquor and wearing lipstick warrants public flogging. The modern day "secret sky" is the world wide web, the veils have not fallen and though Rumi was speaking of love, it is, in today's Iran, interchangeable with freedom.

The World Social Forum and the Streets in Caracas, Venezuela

April Howard and Benjamin Dangl February 7, 2006 April Howard and Benjamin Dangl

Caracas, Venezuela is a city made up of skyscrapers, colonial architecture and, wherever possible, the do-it-yourself tile and cement houses of poor neighborhoods, known as barrios. Though the local mainstream media ignored the coming of the 2006 World Social Forum, Caracans themselves found out quickly as they watched a parade of activists from across the globe pour into their city waving banners, setting up tents and discussing the state of the world on park benches and hotel lobbies.

A People’s History of Iraq: 1950 to November 1963

Bob Feldman February 2, 2006 Bob Feldman

Most people in the United States would like to have seen the 140,000-plus U.S. troops who are still occupying Iraqi soil (in support of special U.S. corporate interests) to be finally withdrawn from Iraq by Christmas 2005. Yet neither Bush Administration officials nor Democratic Party establishment politicians appeared willing to bring U.S. troops in Iraq back to the U.S. any time soon. They still apparently do not want to admit that the demand by U.S. anti-war movement demonstrators that no U.S. troops be sent to Iraq was a wiser foreign policy option to implement than their bipartisan foreign policy of "authorizing the use of United States Armed Force against Iraq."

Fireworks, Politics and a Globalized Stew

Benjamin Dangl January 31, 2006 Benjamin Dangl

Fireworks are exploding everywhere. The Caracas baseball team won a key game and they’ll now go on to final rounds, playing teams from various countries in the region. People have been driving around the city waving the team flag, honking horns and screaming out windows.

It’s the last day of the world social forum. Tents are being packed up and the streets are beginning to look eerily vacant. Buses full “foristas” roar off toward the airport. In many ways, it’s been a college semester smashed into a week. So much information has been floating around, so many panels listened to. However, just as it was at last year’s forum, the best part of the week wasn’t the panels themselves, but meeting like-minded people from all over the world. Meeting people in person whom I had only known through cyber space has been great. read more

Alive in Baghdad: An Interview with Brian Conley

Benjamin Dangl January 31, 2006 Benjamin Dangl

Benjamin Dangl: How did you get involved in journalism and journalistic film making?

Brian Conley: Well, I initially intended to study history and political science in college. When I arrived there, however, I quickly decided that art and, particularly film, were very good ways to influence the public and to talk about important historical events that might not otherwise be learned or discussed in the public discourse.

Depleted Uranium: A Looming Worldwide Calamity

Stephen Lendman January 26, 2006 Stephen Lendman

Forget about Avian bird flu. The threat of it becoming a pandemic is more a political scare tactic and potential bonanza for drug company profits and its major shareholders' net worth (including Gilead Sciences, the developer of the Tamiflu drug and its former Chairman and major shareholder Donald Rumsfeld) than a likely public health crisis - unless you live around infected chickens or take an unproven safe immunization shot. There are much more other likely killer bacterial and viral threats than Avian that get little attention. Don't worry about possible or unlikely threats. Worry about real ones. Bacteria and viruses untreatable by anti-biotics are good examples. So are global warming and many others. But, there's possibly one threat that tops all others both in gravity and because it's been deliberately concealed from the public - never discussed, explained or had any action taken to remediate it. It's the global threat from the toxic effects of depleted uranium (DU), and like global warming; DU has the potential to destroy all planetary life. How can something so potentially destructive be hidden and ignored and why?