For many people around the world, 2011 was a very tough year, as millions lost jobs, suffered foreclosures and faced austerity, while the rich did fine and corporations hoarded trillions of dollars in cash. But there were glimmers of hope in the emergence of resistance, writes Danny Schechter.
As competition for oil, water and other resources intensify, global power relationships are shifting, providing backdrops for a string of conflicts from Iraq to Libya. Brazilian-born journalist Pepe Escobar, one of the most perceptive analysts of these trends, was interviewed by German Lars Schall.
Police cleared out the last major Occupy encampment in the San Francisco Bay area on Thursday with the removal of tents at a park in Berkeley and the roughing-up of some protesters. Dennis J. Bernstein interviewed a U.S. Army veteran who provided security at the camp.
Special Report: Since the days of Richard Nixon, Republicans have pursued an anything-goes brand of politics that often has the look of hostage-taking, with Democrats usually caving in. But, Robert Parry asks, has President Obama finally learned that the only way to stop bullying is to stand up to it?
In the old days, companies responded to complaints with the saying “the customer is always right.” Not so much anymore, except it seems when a right-wing group gets angry that a TV show presents Muslims as real people, as Michael Winship notes.
Three months into the Occupy Wall Street movement, protesters took their message uptown in a march that surprised the police and many Christmas shoppers, but helped explain what the economic crisis means to average people, writes Danny Schechter.
It is an inconvenient truth for mainstream and right-wing Christians that Jesus was crucified for taking his protest against income inequality to the power center of Jerusalem, where he challenged how money had perverted religious principles. Now, that tension is returning with the Occupy protests, Rev. Howard Bess says.
Since the ascendance of Ronald Reagan three decades ago, the Republican Party has evolved into the anti-science (or make-up-your-own-facts) party with a smug know-nothing attitude that is crippling efforts to address the looming crisis of global warming, as Michael Winship notes.
Occupy Wall Street protesters appealed to the broader U.S. population – and even the police – as fellow members of the 99 percent, but Phil Rockstroh observes that many Americans still fear breaking with the oppressive status quo and most police will follow orders in harsh crackdowns.
The world’s financial system continues to teeter near a very nasty brink, with the United States and Europe disagreeing about how to pull back from the edge. Danny Shechter sees crisis, crisis, everywhere.
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