The Democratic majority on the Federal Communications Commission sided with millions of Internet users, voting to prevent the Web from being turned into a high-speed super-highway for some and a slower-speed roadway for many, a victory for free speech and democracy, says Michael Winship.
Three days ago, former U.S. diplomat William R. Polk, who served President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, warned that the West was risking a similar crisis in reverse by pressing NATO forces aggressively onto Russia’s borders. He has now added this postscript about the need for wise leaders.
Greece, known as the birthplace of democracy, has seen the popular will thwarted often since World War II, from a brutal rightist coup to today’s austerity-driven depression touched off by financial manipulators, as William Blum describes.
Special Report: Among the arguments for why Americans should risk nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine is that the regime that took power in a coup last year “shares our values.” But one of those “values” – personified by Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko – may be the skill of using insider connections, reports Robert Parry.
American interventions in Haiti are often sold as paternalistic charity for a basket-case country, but the U.S. interference has often done more harm than good for the impoverished nation where two lawyers have tried to a different approach, building human rights, writes Marjorie Cohn.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that the rich “are different from you and me,” which remains true today except now they don’t even want to be around regular people, seeking more and more remote locations to escape from the increasingly angry commoners, as Michael Winship explains.
Exclusive: The Greek election of the left-wing Syriza party sent shock waves across Europe with establishment parties fearing more populist resistance to years of austerity and to putting bankers first. The question now is whether European voters will follow Syriza’s lead, says Andrés Cala.
On the 133rd anniversary of his birth, Franklin Roosevelt remains a relevant figure for America, the president who gave meaning to the Constitution’s mandate to “provide for the … general Welfare” — and who is still a target for those who made “free markets” their god and “guv-mint” their devil, writes Beverly Bandler.
As the United States lets its national infrastructure decay, the Chinese are pressing ahead with ambitious plans to construct a “New Silk Road” to expand commercial and diplomatic ties to Central and Southeast Asia, report Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett and Wu Bingbing.
With public opinion solidly behind Net Neutrality – and the Obama administration prepared to safeguard it – the Republican Congress has come up with a scheme to sabotage those regulatory protections, as Michael Winship explains.