SPEWS 24
This page aims to provide informative discourse surrounding current events and conflicts
Onions That Make You Cry
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Class Riddled Education (The Independent)
"If we are to improve educational outcomes for all, if we are to achieve equal
outcomes based on aptitude and ability, we need more than an education agenda,
we need a social agenda that fights poverty and inequality." Read More
outcomes based on aptitude and ability, we need more than an education agenda,
we need a social agenda that fights poverty and inequality." Read More
George Galloway takes on Channel 4 News: Never let the media off the hook!
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Here Channel 4 News is likened to Fox News. Appealing to the safe mainstream without wanting to upset the establishment. Galloway points this out and unfortunately it is wrapped up as 'insults'. This then removes the stain from Channel 4 productions and places them firmly on the shoulders of those who criticise. You must have a resolute personality that persists just to scrape the shell of hegemony let alone crack it.
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Madness or Terrorism? It depends upon which side you are on
Robert Fisk reveals why the massacre of Afghan civilians is much more likely to be an act of revenge than it is 'a mental breakdown'. Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was a war the US was never going to win. Thus its reality will be forever lost in the West and spin and lies will become 'history'. Depressingly common wouldn't you say? Read more...
A Fascinating and Compelling Presentation of why the West is in Meltdown
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Minority Report: The Media and 'Race'
Fleet Street's overwhelming monochrome majority goes unnoticed most of the time,
not least because there isn't much incentive for newspapers to report their own
failure to represent, in demographic composition, the society they aspire to
inform. That failure might also make the media less than tenacious in demanding
greater representation for minorities in politics. Read more...
not least because there isn't much incentive for newspapers to report their own
failure to represent, in demographic composition, the society they aspire to
inform. That failure might also make the media less than tenacious in demanding
greater representation for minorities in politics. Read more...
The Global Financial Crisis: Marxist accounts of the current crisis
Here Joseph Choonara consider widely accessible accounts that have appeared in English over the past few months, appraising their strengths and weaknesses relative to each other and to the tradition associated with this journal. Read more...
War & the Media: Critical deconstruction of the BBC and the Q&A session.
The truth about western imperialism in Libya; Afghanistan...
"It didn't happen even as it was happening..." (Harold Pinter).
The 'Riots' of 2011 - Were they a spontaneous act that no one could have forseen OR were they, as the contributions of Hegel and Marx... suggest, an explosion of emotion and action that will repeat itself time and again as long as the conditions that cause it remain in place?
See article by Alan Woods.
Also find the lyrics to 'Riot' by the Dead Kennedy's and a 30 minute documentary detailing the events.
"Riot" (The Dead Kennedy's)
Rioting-the unbeatable
high
Adrenalin shoots your nerves to the sky
Everyone knows this town is gonna blow
And it's all gonna blow right now:.
Now you can smash all
the windows that you want
All you really need are some friends and a
rock
Throwing a brick never felt so damn good
Smash more glass
Scream
with a laugh
And wallow with the crowds
Watch them kicking peoples' ass
But you get to the place
Where the real slavedrivers live
It's
walled off by the riot squad
Aiming guns right at your head
So you turn
right around
And play right into their hands
And set your own
neighbourhood
Burning to the ground instead
[Chorus]
Riot-the unbeatable high
Riot-shoots your nerves
to the sky
Riot-playing into their hands
Tomorrow you're
homeless
Tonight it's a blast
Get your kicks in quick
They're
callin' the national guard
Now could be your only chance
To torch a police
car
Climb the roof, kick the siren in
And jump and yelp for
joy
Quickly-dive back in the crowd
Slip away, now don't get caught
Let's loot the spiffy hi-fi store
Grab as much as you can
hold
Pray your full arms don't fall off
Here comes the owner with a gun
[Chorus]
The barricades spring up from nowhere
Cops in
helmets line the lines
Shotguns prod into your bellies
The trigger fingers
want an excuse
Now
The raging mob has lost its nerve
There's more
of us but who goes first
No one dares to cross the line
The cops know that
they've won
It's all over but not quite
The pigs have just begun to
fight
They club your heads, kick your teeth
Police can riot all that they
please
[Chorus]
Tomorrow you're homeless
Tonight it's a
blast
Repeat...
Supermarket sweep
There are just over 8,000 supermarkets in the UK, and they account for 97% of total grocery sales. Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda and Morrisons take 76% of that market. Their share of non-food retailing currently stands at 14%, a figure up by 75% since 2003. In the two years up to November 2010, planning permission was granted to 480 stores run by the Big Four, which works out at one supermarket every other day. Since 2008, they have accounted for 87% of the retail floor space given planning permission. In May, Channel 4 News reported that by 2014 retail space operated by the Big Four was set to increase by 20%: as its report put it, "an expansion drive on a scale never seen before". Read more...
Newsnight interview (in full) with Noam Chomsky
Rule Britannia: Joey's on the street again
Why David Cameron is wrong about Radicalisation and Multiculturalism
Under the pernicious influence of Michael Gove and other neoconservatives, the Prime Minister is singing from a tired and discredited hymn sheet. Mehdi Hasan's article details why the neo conservatives in the Conservative and New Labour parties are wrong. Read More.
Arundhati Roy
This is a recording of a speech made by Arundhati Roy as a part of the 4th series of lecture under the Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Trust Lecture that was delivered on the 20th of January, 2012 at Xaviers college, Mumbai.
A Brave New Dystopia by Chris Hedges
An application of Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'A Brave New World' to US society (and by proxy to many others)
Added to this analysis should be Naomi Klein's 'The Shock Doctrine' to explain how the corporate entities manipulate the real crises as they occur to bring them in to the economic and cultural hegemony. As much as I adore both books in this piece, especially 1984, the correspondence between fiction and non fiction is essentialist. Wolin's call for a system based on Participatory Democracy is ultimately desirable but by ignoring the world outside of the U.S it leaves this piece open to a criticism Americans should be used, to that of isolationist intellectualism. Huxley and Orwell were both English and yet are being freely applied to the US. Isn't this the key point - the western conformity - the US is not independent and must not be seen as such. Both books are internationalist and as such should be applied appropriately.
Having said all this the piece is extremely thought provoking and a very important contribution.
Having said all this the piece is extremely thought provoking and a very important contribution.
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. Read Rolling Stone article.
The Myth of American Exeptionalism - a lecture by Howard Zinn at MIT
The Malignancy of Debt - both Corporate and Personal
Chile’s ghosts are not being rescued
The accident that trapped the miners is not unusual in Chile, but the inevitable consequence of a ruthless economic system that has barely changed since the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Copper is Chile's gold, and the frequency of mining disasters keeps pace with prices and profits. There are, on average, 39 fatal accidents every year in Chile's privatised mines. The San José mine, where the men work, became so unsafe in 2007 that it had to be closed - but not for long. On 30 July last, a labour department report warned again of "serious safety deficiencies", but no action was taken. Six days later, the men were entombed. Read More...
Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self-Reinforcing Link Between Economic Inequality and Mass Preferences
'One of the implications of this result is that external, non-political shocks that influence distributional outcomes can create massive implications for the path of economic
inequality over time. If an event occurs that increases inequality, that increase in inequality leads to opposition to government intervention that could deal with the distributional consequences of this event, leading to a long cycle of rising inequality. By the same token, a shock that pushes inequality downward would produce liberal sentiment that could then be translated into redistributive policies (Erikson, MacKuen & Stimson 2002, Kelly 2009), creating a downward cycle of inequality. Our results in this article could, in fact, partially explain why the path of inequality over the past sixty years has been characterized by long runs toward equality followed by long runs toward inequality...' |
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Dmitry Orlov: Social Collapse: Why, How, When and If
Social Collapse Best Practices: The Lecture
70 years after his death and capitalism's nemesis is as potent as ever!
Benn taken to the Wire
Does Climate Camp shows us the future of youth activism?
The Revolution will be Civilised In the daily consciousness-raising workshops, it becomes clear that the ideology of Climate Camp is impressively nuanced and uncompromising.
“You can't just stand around and shout: 'The system is fucked,'" says Sam, a shy 20-year-old who peers at the world from underneath a floppy fringe. "That's not politics, that's the absence of politics. We need to keep re-examining the interactions of money and power that brought us to this situation."
“You can't just stand around and shout: 'The system is fucked,'" says Sam, a shy 20-year-old who peers at the world from underneath a floppy fringe. "That's not politics, that's the absence of politics. We need to keep re-examining the interactions of money and power that brought us to this situation."
World's Richest 1% Own 40% Of All Wealth
Activism not Clicktivism If We Want Change
A battle is raging for the soul of activism. It is a struggle between digital activists, who have adopted the logic of the marketplace, and those organisers who vehemently oppose the marketisation of social change. At stake is the possibility of an emancipatory revolution in our lifetimes. Read More...
WANTED: Preferrably Alive to Answer for Well You Name It!
'WANTED' is aimed at anybody who should be held to account for their actions at a geopolitical level. Whether it be crimes against humanity; national/international corruption; ideological warfare that increases inequality (we would include 'sustain inequality' but life is too short)... War Crimes: The World Affairs Blog Network
Crimes of War Project Please send any contibutions via the Blog |
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For the past three years WikiLeaks has challenged governments everywhere - outing human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay, exposing political murders in Africa and banks laundering money through off shore tax havens. The public demand and defend their right to know when governments they have installed are making decisions on their behalf, or the actions of big business impact their lives. And so a group of one-time hackers and activists are trying to build a global truth machine: WikiLeaks "Leaking is inherently an anti-authoritarian act. It is inherently an anarchist act," founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange says. "To be exploring the world and being involved in international politics from your bedroom, it was certainly a feeling that you were on the right path, that this was an extremely educational experience and you were able to do a little bit about the things that were pissing you off," Daniel Ellsberg, famous for outing US government lies about the Vietnam War, was once called the most dangerous man in the US.says: "I'm sure that Assange is now regarded as one of the very most dangerous men and he should be quite proud of that." Read More... Why WikiLeaks Must Be Protected by John Pilger Al Jazeera on lies and civilian murders Frago 242 - Licence to Torture! |
WikiLeaks exploded into prominence earlier this year when it released hitherto top secret video of a helicopter gunship strafing and killing more than a dozen people in Baghdad including media covering the war. The footage caused outrage around the world. Below is the decrypted video in full and a presentation by Wikileaks which includes Julian Assange.
What are your thoughts? Please blog us. |
What Future For Capitalism?
Capitalism is a flawed economic order that is palpably failing humanity. Is it curable? In his radical and controversial article, Sir John Whitmore shows that not only is capitalism incapable of solving the problems of humanity, but in fact hunger, pollution, the breakdown of social fabric, human unhappiness and many other problems are caused by capitalism. In his view there is no such thing as good capitalism or compassionate capitalism or capitalism with a human face. Without beating about the bush he states that capitalism is bad, bad, bad! Sir John comes from a capitalist background, and is a coach for many business leaders. So we need to pay attention to what he says.
The time has come when we must judge the Capitalist system. We aim to ensure that this project is continuous. Please read the article above and watch Parts 1 and 2 of 'What Future for Capitalism?' Blog us with feedback and suggestions.
The time has come when we must judge the Capitalist system. We aim to ensure that this project is continuous. Please read the article above and watch Parts 1 and 2 of 'What Future for Capitalism?' Blog us with feedback and suggestions.
David Harvey Explains the Crises of Capitalism
In this RSA Animate, radical social theorist David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that really could be responsible, just, and humane? This is based on a lecture at the RSA.
The book that has the Tories running scared
The Spirit Level, a book which is turning into a cross between a manifesto and a call to arms. At one leftwing meeting recently, a speaker wished everyone in the country could read its argument that societies more equal than Britain enjoy better physical and mental health, lower homicide rates, fewer drug problems, fewer teenage births, higher maths and literacy scores, higher standards of child wellbeing, lower obesity rates and fewer people in prison. If they could just grasp that, he said, then they would see that combating inequality was good for everyone. His was not a lone voice. David Miliband has declared his admiration for its authors. So has Ed. I expect to hear them disputing soon about who read The Spirit Level first and who admires it the most. Read More...
Major World Economies Debt Levels
Make The Wealthiest Pay!
Deficit crisis: let's really be in it together A one-off tax of the rich has strong public support and would solve the UK's economic crisis at a stroke. See article by Greg Philo.
Disclosure of Corruption = Death
Death to the Supernatural
Auguste Comte - Although we tend to think of atheists as not only unbelieving but also hostile to religion, there is a minor tradition of atheistic thinkers who have attempted to reconcile suspicion of religion with a sympathy for its ritualistic aspects. The most important and inspirational of these investigations was by the visionary, eccentric and only intermittently sane French 19th-century sociologist Auguste Comte. (Alain de Botton)
Red Plenty: Lessons from the Soviet Dream
Give your imagination permission to engage with some unlikely facts: in the 1950s, the USSR was one of the growth stars of the planetary economy, second only to Japan in the speed with which it was hauling itself up from the wreckage of the war years. And this is on the basis not of the official Soviet figures of the time, or even of the CIA's anxious recalculations of them, but of the figures arrived at after the Soviet Union's fall by sceptical historians with access to the archives. The Soviet economy grew through the second half of the 50s at 5%, 6%, 7% a year. Read More...
The Crisis in Gaza
The Horrors of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
In March 2009, a group of soldiers and veterans gathered in Washington, DC, to recount their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. They spent three days testifying, confessing and mourning. They revealed atrocities never before spoken of - the brutal murders of civilians, the destruction of homes and villages, the rape and sexual assault of both civilians and US military women - and displayed photos and video footage to back up their claims. The event was titled "Winter Soldier," harkening back to the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation, in which veterans gathered in Detroit to give testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed in Vietnam. Both Winter Soldiers zeroed in on the US military policy's devastating effects, straight from the mouths of those charged with carrying out that policy.
The Winter Soldiers(Democracy Now)
The Winter Soldiers (Democracy Now)
The Winter Soldiers (Democracy Now)
Winter Soldiers Speak Out in Europe
The Winter Soldiers(Democracy Now)
The Winter Soldiers (Democracy Now)
The Winter Soldiers (Democracy Now)
Winter Soldiers Speak Out in Europe
transcript_of_interviews.pdf | |
File Size: | 156 kb |
File Type: |
To Know is to See. To See is to Know
John Pilger grew up in Sydney, Australia. Since beginning his career in 1958, he has been a war correspondent, author and film-maker, becoming one of the most acclaimed journalists of his generation.
He is one of only two to win British journalism’s highest award twice for his work all over the world. He has been International Reporter of the Year and winner of the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal. For his broadcasting, he has won France’s Reporter Sans Frontières award, an American Academy Award (an Emmy) and a British Academy Award (a BAFTA).
His first film, The Quiet Mutiny, of 1970, explosively revealed a rebellion within the US Army in Vietnam. His 1979 documentary, Cambodia Year Zero, is credited with alerting the world to the horrors of the Pol Pot regime. His 1994 film, Death of a Nation, about East Timor, had a similar consequence. His latest documentary, The War on Democracy, won Best Documentary at the recent One World Media Awards. He is the author of numerous best-selling books including Heroes, A Secret Country, The New Rulers of the World and Hidden Agendas. He is the editor of an anthology, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs. His latest book is Freedom Next Time. In 2003, he received the prestigious Sophie Prize for ‘thirty years of exposing deception and improving human rights’.
‘John Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is’ – Harold Pinter.
“In every university, in every media college, in every news room, teachers of journalism – and journalists themselves – need to question the part they play in the distortion and omission of information that allows great power to have its bloody way... Such a movement could herald a perestroika, a liberation of a kind we have not known – as the internet has already demonstrated. In other words, it is time to reclaim what Tom Paine called ‘the freedom of words and ideas of truth’.” (John Pilger).
John Pilger: The War you Don't See.
Investigatory Journalism that Inspires Us to See and Act
Articles that Open the Door
The New Rulers of the World (An Excerpt)
He is one of only two to win British journalism’s highest award twice for his work all over the world. He has been International Reporter of the Year and winner of the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal. For his broadcasting, he has won France’s Reporter Sans Frontières award, an American Academy Award (an Emmy) and a British Academy Award (a BAFTA).
His first film, The Quiet Mutiny, of 1970, explosively revealed a rebellion within the US Army in Vietnam. His 1979 documentary, Cambodia Year Zero, is credited with alerting the world to the horrors of the Pol Pot regime. His 1994 film, Death of a Nation, about East Timor, had a similar consequence. His latest documentary, The War on Democracy, won Best Documentary at the recent One World Media Awards. He is the author of numerous best-selling books including Heroes, A Secret Country, The New Rulers of the World and Hidden Agendas. He is the editor of an anthology, Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs. His latest book is Freedom Next Time. In 2003, he received the prestigious Sophie Prize for ‘thirty years of exposing deception and improving human rights’.
‘John Pilger unearths, with steely attention to facts, the filthy truth and tells it as it is’ – Harold Pinter.
“In every university, in every media college, in every news room, teachers of journalism – and journalists themselves – need to question the part they play in the distortion and omission of information that allows great power to have its bloody way... Such a movement could herald a perestroika, a liberation of a kind we have not known – as the internet has already demonstrated. In other words, it is time to reclaim what Tom Paine called ‘the freedom of words and ideas of truth’.” (John Pilger).
John Pilger: The War you Don't See.
Investigatory Journalism that Inspires Us to See and Act
Articles that Open the Door
The New Rulers of the World (An Excerpt)
Brown Sugary Carbonated Water + Profit = Death...
Voting Change
The Alternative Vote System Is it better than 'first past the post?' This is not the point. A planned process to give the power to all should be constructed. It should have a reasonable timescale and should be determined by the people themselves. If this means localised democracies containing homogenous perspectives then so be it. A methodology to maintain the status quo is superfluous and corrupt. A programme of liberation is the expectation!