• “Popular Anger May Be Something to Behold”: An Interview with Greg Elich

    STRANGE LIBERATORS: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit by Gregory Elich (with Michael Parenti’s Introduction and Mickey Z’s Afterword)BUY THIS BOOK I first met Greg Elich more than two years when we were both speakers at the One Dance People’s Summit.  We’ve since become friends and I was proud to write the afterword for […]

  • Making Friends with Black People: An Interview with Nick Adams

    MAKING FRIENDS WITH BLACK PEOPLE by Nick AdamsBUY THIS BOOK Comedian and writer Nick Adams wants to be called Black . . . not African-American.  “Once you get into hyphenating based on continent of origin,” he wonders, “where does it stop?”  For a thought experiment, Adams offers the conundrum of hyphenate marrying hyphenate: “My as-yet-unborn […]

  • Street News and NYC’s Homeless: An Interview with John “Indio” Washington

    I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch, he said to me, “You must not ask for so much.” And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door, she cried to me, “Hey, why not ask for more?” — “Bird on a Wire,” Leonard Cohen John “Indio” Washington, 67, is editor-in-chief of Street News […]

  • Target: IranHere We Go Again

    Since quoting Marx makes a writer appear both more educated and more serious, I figured I’d start this piece about Iran with a bit of Marxism . . . from Duck Soup. Ambassador Trentino: “I am willing to do anything to prevent this war.” President Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho): “It’s too late.  I’ve already paid […]

  • Which Wolf Will You Feed in 2006?

    “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” This statement (made by Dubya in September 2001) has been mocked by just about anyone to the left of Genghis Khan, but in 2005, I came to realize how often we all slip into that mentality . . . myself very much included. For […]

  • Have Yourself a Merry I.F. Stone Day: A New December 24 Holiday

    “Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” — I.F. Stone Photo by Keith Jenkins/Burnt Pixel December 24 is I.F. Stone‘s birthday (he would have been 98).  His journalistic example is about as good a reason as any to celebrate. Born Isador Feinstein, the incomparable I.F. Stone served as an […]

  • Stillborn (a poem of occupation)

    Somewhere . . . in the backstreets of Mosul (or maybe Falluja) it happens like a meteor streaking across the pre-dawn horizon A girl — Bint al-Ard — standing before a window conjures a new thought that has never been thought by any man before a new seed, if planted, that might shake the earth […]

  • An Occupation Worth Applauding: Celebrate Un-Thanksgiving

    Until the federal penitentiary was closed in 1963, Alcatraz Island was a place most folks tried to leave. On November 20, 1969, the island’s image underwent a drastic makeover. That was the day thousands of American Indians began an occupation that would last until June 11, 1971. The 1973 armed occupation of Wounded Knee along […]

  • Strike for Peace: An Interview with Brian Bogart

    Activist Brian Bogart asked himself: “Our top industry has been the manufacture and sale of weapons — and we’re a peace-loving nation?” Inspired by this paradox, Bogart created Strike for Peace . . . described on its website as an attempt “to highlight for everyone’s sake the dominant role of the military industry in America’s […]

  • Becoming Conscious of Our Own Strength: Gabriele Zamparini Listens to Voices of Dissent

    An Italian-born former law student, Gabriele Zamparini moved to the States in 1998 where he worked as an Italian teacher and freelance journalist. It was post-9/11 when Zamparini got the idea to make a documentary about “the fast growing, grassroots peace movement” he was witnessing in America. The result was a seven-part film series called […]

  • Lords of War: Arming the World

    “I hope they kill each other . . . too bad they both can’t lose.” — Nobel laureate Henry Kissinger (on the U.S. arming both sides of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s) “Do not support dictators. Do not sell them weapons.” — Nobel laureate Jose Ramos Horta, East Timorese peace negotiator It’s not every […]

  • Keep the “Labor” in Labor Day: Remembering the Lowell Mill Girls

    “In vain do I try to soar in fancy and imagination above the dull reality around me but beyond the roof of the factory I cannot rise.” — anonymous Lowell Mill worker, 1826 Lowell, Massachusetts was named after the wealthy Lowell family. They owned numerous textile mills, which attracted the unmarried daughters of New England […]

  • Vermin and Souvenirs: How to Justify a Nuclear Attack

    Because Japan chose to invade several colonial outposts of the West, the war in the Pacific laid bare the inherent racism of the colonial structure. In the United States and Britain, the Japanese were more hated than the Germans. The race card was played to the hilt through a variety of Allied propaganda methods. Spurred […]

  • Politics and the Playing Field: An interview with Dave Zirin

    It’s fashionable on the Left to look down one’s nose at the world of sports. To do so, according to Dave Zirin, would be to miss a chance at both inspiration and solidarity. Zirin’s new book, What’s My Name, Fool! Sports and Resistance in the United States creates a much-needed bridge between the political and […]

  • “Guilty until Proven Innocent”: An Interview with Dr. Walter M. Brasch

    Journalism professor, columnist and author Walt Brasch began writing his essential new book, America’s Unpatriotic Acts, shortly after Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act. “By exposure of what the federal government has done to our Constitutional rights during the past four years,” he explains, “I hope the people will fully understand that the claims by […]