Subjects Archives: Media

On February 22nd, the Chinese government shut down the China Workers’ Website and Discussion Lists because, according to the order of closure, the owner of such a website must make a 10,000,000 Yuan (US $1.2 million) deposit to register it as a legal one.  The editorial collective responded that they would not be able to […]

  At last, you can now have your own Deluxe 2006 Edition of Iraqopoly! Click on the image for a larger view. “Iraqopoly: The Deluxe 2006 Stay the Course Edition” Rules: There Are No Rules — Only Ideology Get to Baghdad, and then Spin for an Exit Strategy. Bush Makes Axis of Evil Speech — […]

  “Predictions are suspect.  But something new is happening. . . .” — Paul Buhle1 A people’s movement against the “class war from above” is beginning to crystallize across Thailand.  Students and unionized workers have suddenly emerged as a new force in the streets in helping to organize a broad-based people’s alliance to oust the […]

  NO COLD KITCHEN: A Biography of Nadine Gordimer by Ronald S. Roberts BUY THIS BOOK No Cold Kitchen is a biography of Nadine Gordimer by Ronald S. Roberts (published by STE Publishers).  As an activist, Gordimer played a vital role in the struggle against the apartheid.  In 1985, Gordimer declared: “I am a partisan […]

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 […]

[Hugh Thompson Jr., who died on January 6, 2006, was a former Army helicopter pilot, who, on March 16, 1968, with door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon U.S. ground troops killing Viet Namese civilians in and around the village of My Lai. They landed their helicopter in the line of fire […]

  José Martí and Simón Bolívar, two of Latin America’s most respected independence fighters, recognized nearly a century ago that their homelands would never be free of imperial domination, until Latin America came together in solidarity as a united force. Martí and Bolívar’s insights remain relevant in the age of neo-liberal globalization.  The colonizers of […]

  [This essay is a winner of an essay contest held by Left Hook and sponsored by Monthly Review. — Ed.] During the last two summers, I did not spend my days relaxing on a beach reading great novels and poems.  I did not write the grand story I promised myself I would write.  Instead, […]

The TV glows green like the obsolete computer in the attic blurred shapes that could be buildings or simply the geometry of electrons bright circles of lens flare as accents an abstract electronic image they say is Baghdad. I don’t know Baghdad, don’t know where the missiles are falling I don’t know which buildings are […]

Physicians for a National Health Program held its annual meeting on December 10, 2005. Originally planned for New Orleans, it was relocated to Philadelphia after Hurricane Katrina. Founded in 1987, the organization has over 14,000 members nationally. PNHP advocates and educates for a single national health insurance plan: in the words of PNHP National Coordinator […]

  When the polar bears are drowning and the salmon cross the street And late summer’s on the non-existent breeze; When the yellow clouds are frowning and the snow is always sleet And there’s only five of what were Seven Seas; When it’s ninety in December at the Arctic Circle’s edge And the birds are […]

They thought I was asleep That night they took my brother away No dream I could keep With tears flooding my face He said I could be redeemed Showed me how change takes place Gave me a reason to believe That love forgives mistakes And they thought I was asleep When they took him away […]

In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky posit that the “‘societal purpose’ of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state” (p. 298).1  Lately, however, the media has been taking […]

  A young man by the name of Erik Hartmann graduated from Evergreen Park Community High School in Evergreen Park, Illinois in June of 1976 without having a clue of what to do beyond that. He had played sports in all four of his high school years and was quite the physical specimen. He was […]

“What started it?” “A blind man with a pistol.” “That don’t make sense.” “Sure don’t.” — Chester Himes Minorities and most poor people in the inner cities have always lived with the knowledge that (for them at least) the forces of unlawful suppression and misuse of power far too often masqueraded as the forces of […]

I have two cities but only one home that is my mother’s womb with one long umbilical cord that reaches across thousands of frequent flyer miles. I have two apartments and one window filled with pleats of light and a sooty curtain that no matter the color is a checkered gray. I have “an abiding […]

  In 1958 I wrote the following: There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false. I believe that these assertions still make sense and do […]

An awesome thing So personal, yet universally A peace it brings To all, the seen and unseen A mighty thing So much a part of humanity Divinity in our being That, at all times, must be seen A powerful thing So simple, yet connected to deity The soul that sings One man’s spirit can change […]

As a rule, corporate advertising expenditure in the United States at least keeps pace with the growth rate of the U.S. economy.  This explains why ads are constantly grabbing more space and appearing in new places, such as the fronts of grocery-store shopping-carts, above men’s urinals, at the bottoms of golf holes, and inside movie […]

“Money doesn’t talk, it swears.” — Bob Dylan The beginning of this year’s holiday season and the Major League Baseball offseason (when most of the trading and dealing of players occurs) has led me to ponder, once again, money and American popular culture.  The re-release of Bruce Springsteen‘s 1975 tour de force Born to Run […]