Bump This Thread - Democracy Now! News Items

[VWFringe]

~ shares around Democracy Now! news items - what'dja see today that's got you all hot and bothered?

because believe me, it'll make you mad...go ahead, vent (hope it's not only me - heehee!)


Democracy Now! The war and peace report, with Amy Goodman, and Juan Gonzalez (doesn't he add the warmth to the show?)

Thanks,

 

[VWFringe]

(reserved)

 

[VWFringe]

Michael Moore speach in Wisconsin

Michael Moore Joins Wisconsin Labor Protests: America Is Not Broke

Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe, so that youll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot, said Michael Moore at Saturdays labor rally in Madison opposing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walkers attempt to end the collective bargaining rights for the majority of public sector workers. The country is awash in wealth and cash. Its just that its not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw

 

[VWFringe]

Naomi Campbell

Naomi Klein on Anti-Union Bills and Shock Doctrine American-Style: "This is a Frontal Assault on Democracy, Its a Kind of a Corporate Coup DEtat"

As a wave of anti-union bills are introduced across the country in the wake of Wall Street financial crisis, many analysts are picking up on the theory that award-winning journalist and author Naomi Klein first argued in her 2007 bestselling book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. In the book, she reveals how those in power use times of crisis to push through undemocratic and extreme free market economic policies. The Wisconsin protests are an incredible example of how to resist the shock doctrine, Klein says.

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/9/naomi_klein_on_anti_union_bills

She links this very successfully to the "Bidder 70" story of DeChristopher's civil disobedience to stop a land-grab by corporations, by bidding on land he did not intend to buy, and has been sentenced to 10 years for his action. http://www.peacefuluprising.org/climate-trial

 

[VWFringe]

One hundred years ago today, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire killed 175 people who were either trapped or leapt to their death to escape the flames. The fire started at the end of the work day and as mostly immigrant garment workers tried to escape, their way was blocked by a locked door. It took only 18 minutes to get the fire under control but it was too late. The 1911 fire became the touchstone for organized labor.

Democracy Now spot-lites the Triangle Fire, and how similar fires are happening around the world, where they are paid less today than the women who died a hundred years ago.

We are racing to the bottom as one guest put it.

This really pisses me off.

Labor Rights Legacy of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: Garment Unions Marched Out of this Fire and Produced the New Unionism

The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City unleashed public outrage, forcing government action. Within three years, more than 36 new state laws had been passed on quality of workplace conditions. The landmark legislation gave New Yorkers the most comprehensive workplace safety laws in the country and become a model for the nation. Theres a straight line, really, that runs from the fire right through to the New Deal, the labor legislation reform of that era, the welfare state, and the creation of industrial unionism, and the right to organize in the 1930s, says labor historian Steve Fraser.

100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Today marks the centennial anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the deadliest workplace accident in New York Citys history and a seminal moment for American labor. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, died after a fire broke out at the factory. Many of them leaped to their deaths when they tried to escape and found the emergency exits locked. "I saw people throwing themselves from the window. As soon as we went down, we could not get out because the bodies were coming down" says the last survivor of the fire in a 1986 interview with Amy Goodman. Denied any collective bargaining rights, the Triangle workers were powerless to change the abysmal conditions in their factory: inadequate ventilation, lack of safety precautions and fire drills--and locked doors.

100 Years After Triangle Fire, Tragedy in Bangladesh and Anti-Union Bill in Wisconsin Highlight Workers Enduring Struggles

One hundred years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, we look at some of the major struggles facing workers today in the United States and around the world. In one of many recent fires, 26 workers making clothes for U.S. companies were killed in Bangladesh last December. Workers across the United States, meanwhile, are facing a resurgent assault on salaries, benefits, and their right to organizeas epitomized in Wisconsins anti-union bill.

 

[tdavie]

In a couple of hours the Government of Canada will fall, forcing an early May election which we don't need. No party will be able to form a majority government so we'll end up with another fucking minority government that will be voted out on a non confidence motion in a few years time.

Shrug; I'm still gonna vote for myself or the Marijuana party.

Tom

 

[VWFringe]

In a couple of hours the Government of Canada will fall, forcing an early May election which we don't need. No party will be able to form a majority government so we'll end up with another fucking minority government that will be voted out on a non confidence motion in a few years time.

Shrug; I'm still gonna vote for myself or the Marijuana party.

Tom

that's fucked up - that would be like the republican's getting the power to overthrow the democrats just because they didn't get a majority of the seats in the House.

and what's up with your Senate not being elected? damn

I guess the ole-push-me-pull-you of politics is just as bad whereever we go.

 

[VWFringe]

not Democracy Now, but same line of thought...connections revealed will make you wonder if grass-roots movements have any future in America...or if we can ever escape the spin on TV...

The Billionaires' Tea Party (Proof Tea Party Is Nothing But Astro Turf)

Billionaires' Tea Party, The
How Corporate America is Faking a Grassroots Revolution

In the summer of 2009, shortly after Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress swept to power promising a new era of hope and change, a citizens protest movement emerged out of nowhere threatening to derail their agenda. Some said this uprising was the epitome of grassroots democracy. Others said it was a classic example of 'astroturfing' -- an elaborate corporate public relations effort designed to create the impression of a spontaneous uprising. Curious to find out for himself, Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham goes undercover and straight into the heart of the movement. He visits raucous health care town hall meetings where irate voters parrot insurance industry PR; learns that home-grown "citizen groups" challenging the science behind climate change are funded by big oil companies; and infiltrates a tea party movement whose anti-government rage turns out to be less the product of populist rage than of corporate strategy. In the end, The Billionaires' Tea Party offers a terrifying look at how corporate elites are exploiting the anxieties of ordinary Americans -- capitalizing on anger, resentment, and paranoia to advance a narrow, often anti-democratic, agenda.

(Previously known as AstroTurf Wars.)

every American should fast forward to 43:40, and ponder what this means for some of our most cherished internet institutions, like Amazon book reviews, or IMDB, but of course this goes deeper as it cuts into our checkbooks, legislation and elected officials, and our ability as a country to have neighborly relations with other countries.

 

[VWFringe]

A very disturbing trend....
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Huffington Post

How the Top 1 Percent Capture Our Regulators... and the American Dream

That Didnt Take Long

when regulators care more about their chances of getting a big job in one of the businesses they're supposed to be regulating, how can we expect an honest regulatory environment? They just appear to be shills at this point...

 

[VWFringe]

Formaldehyde Added to Known Carcinogens List Despite Lobbying by Koch Brothers, Chemical Industry

it's the cover-up that's infuriating - Koch kept it off the official lists of carcinogens years after he knew the problem. Formaldehyde and styrene cause cancer.

 

[VWFringe]

Eli Pariser on His New Book, [h] The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You [/h]
he explains how the Internet is using personalization algorithms to tailor results and what you are exposed to on the web (even if you aren't logged in), and how that presents a clear social danger, as the Internet shifts from a way to connect with different points of view to a web of one.

from the Penguin book site:

An eye-opening account of how the hidden rise of personalization on the Internet is controlling-and limiting-the information we consume.

In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years-the rise of personalization. In this groundbreaking investigation of the new hidden Web, Pariser uncovers how this growing trend threatens to control how we consume and share information as a society-and reveals what we can do about it.

Though the phenomenon has gone largely undetected until now, personalized filters are sweeping the Web, creating individual universes of information for each of us. Facebook-the primary news source for an increasing number of Americans-prioritizes the links it believes will appeal to you so that if you are a liberal, you can expect to see only progressive links. Even an old-media bastion like The Washington Post devotes the top of its home page to a news feed with the links your Facebook friends are sharing. Behind the scenes a burgeoning industry of data companies is tracking your personal information to sell to advertisers, from your political leanings to the color you painted your living room to the hiking boots you just browsed on Zappos.

In a personalized world, we will increasingly be typed and fed only news that is pleasant, familiar, and confirms our beliefs-and because these filters are invisible, we won't know what is being hidden from us. Our past interests will determine what we are exposed to in the future, leaving less room for the unexpected encounters that spark creativity, innovation, and the democratic exchange of ideas.

While we all worry that the Internet is eroding privacy or shrinking our attention spans, Pariser uncovers a more pernicious and far- reaching trend on the Internet and shows how we can- and must-change course. With vivid detail and remarkable scope, The Filter Bubble reveals how personalization undermines the Internet's original purpose as an open platform for the spread of ideas and could leave us all in an isolated, echoing world.

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This story has lead me to ponder the thought we all live in a Filter Bubble.
whether we live collectively in a filter bubble, submitting ourselves to brainwashing to identify as normal.

edit: a book was published in 1984 about related ideas, and a concept called the "relevance paradox" was termed for projects where important information is avoided because its' thought to be irrelevant, but ends up being crucial.

 

[Khantagious]

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/25/in_tahrir_square_hbo_doc_on

looks to be a very interesting documentary on HBO2 tonight (note the "2" as it is not on the main HBO), not so much a documentary about the revolution in Egypt as it is a documentary about a Democracy Now! correspondent's experience covering the revolution. I will probably have to record it to watch this weekend, but I am looking forward to it