Fifteen thousand families have been forcibly relocated to make room for stadiums and infrastructure for the World Cup in Brazil.
A thousand military-backed police and 200,000 soldiers have been deployed for “security” and the suppression of popular protests against the eviction and displacement of poor families to make room for the World Cup. Police have raided the homes of activists and pre-emptively arrested at least 8 on the eve of the tournament.
Enjoy the football, everybody.
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One thing I’m thankful to Al Jazeera for is that it lets me follow the recent events in Spain in far greater detail than I ever could on CNNMSNBCFox.
Here’s one in solidarity with Spaniards all over their country taking the streets to protest economic “austerity” and the ruination of their economy by the bankers, and to demand an end to the monarchy following the abdication of King Juan Carlos.
God Save The King — and his fascist regime!
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Total running time 03:52.
The petition drive for Washington, DC’s cannabis leglization ballot question hits Capitol Hill on one of the first rare perfect spring days in DC.
Find out about the “Super Sunday Signature Gathering Blitz” at the DC Cannabis Campaign.
UPDATE: CORRECTION: Tommy Wells is, in fact, the DC City Councilman from Ward 6, not “at-large”.
Continue reading "Prop 71 Petition Drive Hits Capitol Hill" »
What if they gave an election and nobody came?
I caught this article on Al Jazeera the other day, reporting that owing to poor turnout, the Egyptian election commission has been forced to extend voting for a third day. In fact, Egyptians are avoiding the polls in such large numbers that the election commission is threatening fines for not voting — which kind of pushes not voting into the realm of non-violent civil disobedience, when you think about it.
I couldn’t help thinking that dissident/third parties in the US — especially on the Left — could learn something from this. For many years now, Americans have staged a sort of de facto boycott of elections, but it hasn’t been organized and sent no unified message about oligarchy and corruption. Perhaps instead of pissing away time and energy trying to get “elected”, outfits like the Green Party could instead send a message about the state of US electoral politics by calling for a boycott — a “No Vote” campaign, mobilizing non-voters to take to the streets to express their intent and their reason for not voting, smashing the old stereotype of the “apathetic” non-voter.
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