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lastrealindians:

EZLN ( Zapatista National Liberation Army) marched by the hundreds from the highlands of chiapas into cities to draw attention to Indigenous issues which have been ignored or quelled by the Mexican government

(via otpglobal)

otpglobal:

Carving up the Arctic — http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/carving-arctic-0022427

In 2012 alone an area of the Arctic bigger than the United States melted, leaving ice cover at a new record low. As the vanishing sea ice opens up formerly unnavigable areas to shipping and drilling of oil, the world’s superpowers are increasingly eyeing military and economic opportunities.

#ClimateChange +The Stream 

(Source: youtube.com)

anarcho-queer:

Cooper Union Students, Teachers and Supporters Protest For A Free Education, Hope To Spark Larger Movement

When George Caffentzis was teaching philosophy in 1976 at the City University of New York system, none of his students had to pay tuition.

That changed within a matter of just two years after New York City went into a financial crisis and needed help from the federal government. Because the city was broke, Caffentzis said, so too was the CUNY system, and charging tuition quickly became a proposition.

“So in order to presumably beat the debt, tuition would have to be charged. So this was the logic that occurred in 1976 and led to a historic change,” Caffentzis said, “and eventually led to a decline in enrollments,” as well as mass layoffs of non-tenured faculty, including himself.

Caffentzis went on teach in other American colleges — and in Nigeria for a time — before landing where he is currently at the University of Southern Maine. But on Saturday afternoon, he was in lower Manhattan to take part in a demonstration against the possible implementation of tuition for the first time at Cooper Union, a small college in the city’s East Village with around 1,000 undergraduates.

Cooper Union is one of the last higher education institutions in the U.S. to not charge students tuition — they’re all covered by a full scholarship which is currently valued by the school at more than $38,000. The possibility that Cooper may soon charge tuition for the first time in its history has prompted a week of student protests.

The student occupiers have received more than a dozen letters of support from student unions and professors, from around the U.S. and overseas, who have been involved in their own protests against tuition and privatization measures.

At Saturday’s demonstration, student protesters, alumni and faculty members from Cooper, CUNY, New York University and elsewhere, used several symbols of student activism from abroad. They wore a red felt square, which was popularized during the recent Quebec student movement against raising tuition. They also marched while banging pots and pans, a popular feature of the Montreal student protests in May. While pots-and-pans demonstrations have their roots in Chile, the tactic was used by Canadians in response to emergency law Bill 78, which lawmakers pushed to quell an uprising amongst college students upset over tuition increases.

“It’s exciting to see students having a much wider scope in the struggle,” said Conor Tomas Reed, a CUNY student with his own student debt, “that it’s not just one flashpoint, that it’s not just a sprint — it’s a marathon.”

Around 200 people, mostly students, gathered at Washington Square Park in Manhattan on Saturday to participate in a citywide rally supporting the 11 Cooper Union undergrads who’ve been in the eighth floor of the school’s Foundation Building for the past five days. In the park, and after a march to the Foundation Building, speakers shared why they came: A World War II veteran said he met his wife when she was at Cooper, several students said they wouldn’t be able to go to college without Cooper’s scholarships, and CUNY students were hoping this may spark a citywide strike among college students.

Photo Credit

reuters:

By day, the streets of Syria’s capital are crowded with cars and with shoppers. It looks normal, but it isn’t - by noon, people are planning how to get home before nightfall.

Roads suddenly blocked by the army cause traffic jams. Workers race to quit the office, hit the shops and get home by dark. Dark is when the kidnappers come out to seek new victims, and the clashes raging on the outskirts creep ever closer to the heart of Damascus.

For months, the people of Damascus have nervously watched their ancient city dragged deeper into Syria’s bloody conflict.

Fighting has already laid waste to much of the northern city of Aleppo and burned parts of its vaulted Old City quarter to the ground. Whole swathes of central Homs have been reduced to rubble.

“I’ve seen what happens and have a sinking feeling about what comes next. We fear killing and bombing, we fear being forced to flee, or being looted by the army or the rebels,” said Majed, 28, a hotel worker from central Damascus. “What would happen to our beautiful Old City? It is mental torture.”

The 20-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for four decades, is now finally threatening the seat of power. Residents describe a foreboding and anxiety overtaking Damascus.

Rush hour now starts around 3 p.m., well before dusk.

READ ON: Darkness at noon in the mind of fearful Damascus

otpglobal:

Accused Wikileaks Whistleblower #BradleyManning Testifies He Thought Would “Die in Custody” — via: Democracy Now!

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, has testified for the first time since he was arrested in May 2010.

An update from Michael Ratner, who was in the courtroom during Manning’s appearance. Ratner is president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a lawyer for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

Also: EXCLUSIVE: Julian Assange on WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Cypherpunks, Surveillance State

thepeoplesrecord:

Judge stops school from expelling girl who refused to wear tracking device
November 16, 2012

A Texas high school student will be allowed to continue going to class for now despite her refusal to cooperate with a program that forces pupils to be mandatorily tracked with computer chips.

Andrea Hernandez was told she’d be expelled from John Jay High School’s Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio starting next week if she insists any further on disobeying a new policy that requires students to wear ID badges equipped with tiny Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) chips. Now attorneys with the Rutherford Institute say Hernandez has been granted a temporary restraining order that will prohibit the Northside Independent School District from relocating the student to another facility.

“The court’s willingness to grant a temporary restraining order is a good first step, but there is still a long way to go — not just in this case, but dealing with the mindset, in general, that everyone needs to be monitored and controlled,” Rutherford Institute President John Whitehead says in a statement.

“Regimes in the past have always started with the schools, where they develop a compliant citizenry. These ‘Student Locator’ programs are ultimately aimed at getting students used to living in a total surveillance state where there will be no privacy, and wherever you go and whatever you text or email will be watched by the government.”

Starting in September, students at John Jay and one other area school were asked to wear ID badges that broadcast their location so educators can keep more accurate attendance records and, ideally, be provided with more funding. Hernandez refused to cooperate right off the bat, however, a maneuver that she said landed her in hot water with educators almost immediately.

“I had a teacher tell me I would not be allowed to vote because I did not have the proper voter ID,” she told WND. “I had my old student ID card which they originally told us would be good for the entire four years we were in school. He said I needed the new ID with the chip in order to vote.”

Earlier this month, the parents of John Jay students were told that pupils are required to carry the badges, and that Hernandez would be expelled starting Nov. 26 if she continues to protest.

“There is something fundamentally disturbing about this school district’s insistence on steamrolling students into complying with programs that have nothing whatsoever to do with academic priorities and everything to do with fattening school coffers,” Whitehead said after the school issued their warning.

“By virtue of the First Amendment, students in our society are at liberty to conscientiously choose which governmental programs they will support and which they will oppose. It’s a sad day in America when school officials deny someone an education simply because she stands up for what she believes in.”

Source

(via randomactsofchaos)

(Source: otpglobal)

otpglobal:

@Adbusters - Kalle Lasn on CBC - Reflections on #Occupy … #OWS #BlueGreenBlack 

World Pirate Party

(Source: youtube.com)

otpglobal:

Birgitta Jónsdóttir at the Open Mind Conference 2012, Skanderborg Denmark.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir is a member of Althingi, the Icelandic parliament, and is a representative of The Movement party. Her constituency is the Reykjavík South district. She was elected to the Icelandic parliament in April 2009.

Birgitta has been an activist and a spokesperson for various groups, such as WikiLeaks and Saving Iceland, and is part of the International Network of Parliamentarians’ for Tibet. She is also the chief sponsor of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative.

As well as being a politician, she is also a poet, writer, artist, editor, web developer and designer. She has edited and published two books “The World Healing Book” and “The Book of Hope”, which include writings by the Dalai Lam

 Also:

 Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq

socialismartnature:

International boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) efforts helped topple South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime. In the context of Israel’s latest assault on Gaza, a global BDS movement against Israel’s rapacious occupation is necessary - and possible to organize - now more than ever

Here’s what Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah had to say about Barghouti’s book, BDS:

“Barghouti explains with lucidity, passion, and unrivaled intelligence…that bringing an end to apartheid in Palestine and seeing justice and equality for all the people who live there is not a distant dream but a reality we can bring about in the next few years using BDS.”

(via otpglobal)