contributions

By Sandra Cuffe
Good News, Bad News
After another visit to political prisoners Marcelino and Leonardo Miranda, community leaders from Montaña Verde, we returned to the office of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). Organizers and members, including many from the two communities of Montaña Verde, were on their way back from Tegucigalpa, where they had participated in a protest in front of the Supreme Court of Honduras to demand the freedom (…)

The anti-war and progressive movement that is fighting against imperialist war and occupation abroad and the assault against people’s rights at home has reached a critical juncture. The progressive movement has grown at a dynamic rate all around the world in the last two years primarily in response to the Bush administration’s global assault on people’s rights. This movement has shown powerful collective action on a global scale as all of us have stood together across the U.S. and around the (…)

By Naomi Klein
Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4 billion in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below prewar levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted with British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and" — get this — "embarrassment." I don’t know whether Aegis will succeed (…)

by Kelly Anderson & Tami Gold
Inspired to act in response to the NYPD’s shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999, filmmakers Kelly Anderson and Tami Gold subsequently made the documentary film Every Mother’s Son, which premiers on PBS’s POV series August 17 at 10 pm EST and screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in May. Here they write about their decision to tell three stories of New York City police violence from the point of view of the victims’ mothers.
In 1999, when Amadou Diallo was (…)

Why, his family asks, did he have to die?
By Paul Kelbie, Scotland Correspondent
There was never any doubt what Gordon Gentle would end up doing when he left school. Both his mother’s brothers had served with the Royal Highland Fusiliers in Northern Ireland, and for the quiet, 6ft 2in Celtic fan it seemed there was never an alternative but to follow in their footsteps.
School friends teased him over his military ambitions, saying he was too kind and good-natured to be a soldier. He was (…)

Israeli interrogators ’in Iraq’
The US officer at the heart of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal says she has evidence that Israelis helped to interrogate Iraqis at another facility.
Brig Gen Janis Karpinski told the BBC she met an Israeli working as an interrogator at a secret intelligence centre in Baghdad.
A BBC reporter says it is the first time a senior US officer has suggested Israelis worked with the coalition.
The Israeli foreign ministry said the reports were completely untrue. (…)

Friends,
Where do I begin? This past week has knocked me for a loop. "Fahrenheit 9/11," the #1 movie in the country, the largest grossing documentary ever. My head is spinning. Didn’t we just lose our distributor 8 weeks ago? Did Karl Rove really fail to stop this? Is Bush packing?
Each day this week I was given a new piece of information from the press that covers Hollywood, and I barely had time to recover from the last tidbit before the next one smacked me upside the head:
** More (…)

Marcel, the youngest son of Alemaine King of Rinkgreen Walk, Greenbury Phoenix was killed by the eThekweni Municipalities Security force whilst defending his helpless mum and defying electricity cut-offs in his community
The King family has had their electricity supply cut-off on several occasions. This is common in this community where 75% of the residents in Rinkgreen Walk have had their electricity cut off. This defiance against disconnection of services is supported by other townships (…)

March 30, 1973
That Unfinished Oscar Speech
By MARLON BRANDO
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — For 200 years we have said to the Indian people who are fighting for their land, their life, their families and their right to be free: ’’Lay down your arms, my friends, and then we will remain together. Only if you lay down your arms, my friends, can we then talk of peace and come to an agreement which will be good for you.’’
When they laid down their arms, we murdered them. We lied to them. We (…)

By Organizing Committee of the Million Worker March
On June 23, 2004, at the behest of John Sweeney and the leadership of the AFL-CIO, Marilyn C. Sneiderman, Director of the Field Mobilization Department of the AFL-CIO, sent out a Memorandum to “All State Federations and Central Labor Councils of the AFL-CIO” referencing the “Million Worker March,” and directing them “not to sponsor or devote resources to the demonstration in Washington, D.C.”
We take note of the fact that this (…)