October 2011

Occupy the Winter of Our Discontent

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Can occupations survive a winter of global weirding, escalated police brutality, and the corporate media’s venom? Should they?

In some parts of the country there will be no cold weather. In others, police abuses will result in larger occupations, not smaller. And it’s certainly possible that for the first time in recent years an independent progressive populist campaign will survive the enmity of the corporate media.

In other cases, the cold, the communications assaults, fatigue, and read more

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A 51st State for Armed Robotic Drones

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Weaponized UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), also known as drones, have their own caucus in Congress, and the Pentagon’s plan is to give them their own state as well.

Under this plan, 7 million acres (or 11,000 square miles) of land in the southeast corner of Colorado, and 60 million acres of air space (or 94,000 square miles) over Colorado and New Mexico would be given over to special forces testing and training in the use of remote-controlled flying murder machines. The full state of Colorado read more

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Audio: Joshua Frank and David Swanson on Activism and Elections

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SolarTimes editor Sandy LeonVest hosts the first in a series of “progressive conversations” on strategies for the upcoming 2012 presidential elections. Her guests, David Swanson and Joshua Frank, are two of the country’s leading progressive thinkers. While they agree that “politics as usual” needs to be challenged in the interest of maintaining (what remains of) read more

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US Army Assaults Its Biggest Fan

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One of the most valuable benefits of putting political action into the form of nonviolent encampments is that we learn each other’s stories as we occupy our public parks and squares. Here’s a story from the October2011 occupation in Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C. There are many more, and we’d like to hear yours when you join us.

Aristine Maharry is 29 years old and now lives in Freedom Plaza. She grew up in a very military family, with members of her family having participated read more

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Unable to Get Simeone Fired, NPR Drops "World of Opera"

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Yesterday, NPR’s PR flack was haranguing me on the phone about how NPR had nothing to do with getting Lisa Simeone fired from an independent program called Soundprint.  This was despite NPR having gone public with its concerns over Simeone’s “unethical” participation in democracy, and Soundprint’s referencing of NPR’s “ethics” rules in firing Simeone.  It was also despite NPR’s clear intention to get read more

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Goodbye Iraq? Not Exactly

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By David Swanson, RootsAction.org

I just got an email from Huffington Post telling me that Obama was keeping his campaign promise to get U.S. troops out of Iraq.  Not quite.  Here’s a video of Obama’s promise.

In that 15-second video he says: “I will promise you this: that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do.  I will get our troops home.  We will bring an end to this war.  You can take that to read more

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What You Gave Obama Could Have Been Put to Good Use

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The most remarkable thing about the Occupy Movement is that it is happening without funding.  Yes, donations are starting to pour into Occupy Wall Street, but not at the level that could really boost this campaign to replace plutocracy with popular participation.  And most of the other occupations around the country are poor or penniless, with their futures in some doubt because of that status.

The movement that won women the right to vote got a huge boost when a supporter left $2 million read more

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The Two Occupations of DC

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The occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington DC was planned for several months to begin on the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War.  It was planned prior to and quickly endorsed and supported the planning for Occupy Wall St.  In numerous blog posts through the summer I described it as an occupation.  Here is a video of me demanding an occupation of DC and George Galloway demanding an occupation of London.  This is from June:

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