Exclusive: The Park Police have agreed to let protesters camp out at Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C. for four months as they press their demands for a shift in national priorities from war and greed toward jobs and peace. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern reports on a anti-war march to the White House.
For a decade now, the American people have been told that only a “long war” against Islamist extremism can keep them safe from terrorism, even at the cost of trillions of dollars and loss of their liberties. Not even the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden changed the tune, says Ivan Eland.
The longstanding Israel-Palestine conflict engenders strong feelings on both sides, with the Palestinians citing decades of oppression and the Israelis recalling a long history of abuse and genocide. But Winslow Myers suggests that the principles of Gandhi offer hope.
Curiously, it has often fallen to the U.S. military to take the lead in changing the society’s patterns of discrimination, even as churches sometimes lag. After World War II, the military took up the fight against racial bias. Today, the target is bigotry against gays, as Rev. Howard Bess notes.
Across the United States, the 99 Percent Movement is occupying more and more parks to protest America’s growing economic inequality. In Washington DC, activist Kevin Zeese reports on the protest at Freedom Plaza near the Treasury building.
From the Archive: In Argentina, a case of a 35-year-old woman may finally prove that military officers in the Dirty War of the 1970s had a systemic scheme for stealing babies from female dissidents who were murdered. In this 1997 article, Argentine journalist Marta Gurvich examined one of these shocking cases.
Israel’s right-wing leaders feel they can count on U.S. politicians to rubber-stamp pretty much whatever Israel does to the Palestinians, with some extremist rabbis even glorifying the racist mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. Which leaves Lawrence Davidson wondering what it will take to change behavior in Washington and Tel Aviv.
During the Cold War, the U.S. avoided large permanent bases in the Islamic world so as not to enflame anti-Western passions. But that changed with the Persian Gulf War, endangering rather than protecting the interests of the American people — and highlighting why a new national security policy is needed, writes Gareth Porter.
Exclusive: On Sept. 18, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern gave a talk about “activism” to a conference in Charlottesville, Virginia, focused on the need to confront the military industrial complex. Now, as the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington gets underway, his words take on a special resonance.
Finally, a truly “populist” movement – not like the Tea Party funded by billionaires to serve the interests of billionaires – has arisen in America to challenge the growing economic inequities in U.S. society. Phil Rockstroh found his time with the “99 Percent” movement at the newly dubbed Liberty Plaza invigorating.
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