December 17, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
One year after Mohammed al-Bouazizi lit himself on fire in protest against mistreatment by police, sparking a movement that has toppled regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, a global wave of popular protest continues, from the Arabic-speaking world to Europe, India, Chile, the United States and Russia. Today, democracy advocates protest unlawful detention, arbitrary power and socio-economic injustice across the world.
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November 25, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians are gathering for a nonviolent “Last Chance” pro-democracy protest. Military police have killed at least 41 unarmed civilians since last Saturday. Today, the massive numbers of civilians who turned out are demanding an end to military rule, and an orderly transition to genuine democracy. The 9 months of military rule [...]
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August 20, 2011 :: staff :: 2 Comments
After six months of fighting, the Libyan rebel forces, representing the pro-demcoracy movement that came under military attack by 42-year dictator Muammar Qadhafi, are reportedly advancing on the capital Tripoli. Since the fighting began, the rebels’ Transitional National Council has won support from world powers, the international community and ultimately the United Nations, as the official governing and diplomatic authority for Libya. Now, an isolated Qadhafi looks likely to lose power in the coming weeks or months.
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August 19, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Pres. Barack Obama, who with Sec. of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has managed a complex array of shifting diplomatic relations throughout the developing democratic awakening across the Arabic-speaking world, yesterday demanded that Syria’s authoritarian leader Bashar al-Assad relinquish power. Assad has engaged in five months of full-scale military attacks on unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators.
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August 9, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Wisconsin is holding six recall elections tonight in response to popular petition to unseat Republican state senators who supported Gov. Walker’s plan to strip public servants of their collective bargaining rights. Each of the six Republican incumbents occupy senate seats representing districts drawn by Republicans to ensure Republican victories, so any victory represents a significant shift in party preference.
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August 1, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Yemen may be where the Arab spring, this sweeping current of democratic upheaval in the Arabic-speaking world, takes a turn definitively toward violence or toward civic solutions. The regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, a tribal dictatorship using feudal power tactics, based in the capital Sanaa, is now waging one war against extremist Islamists and another against non-violent pro-democracy protesters.
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July 15, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The mounting protest movement in Jordan is organizing massive new demonstrations, calling for constitutional reform that will maintain the monarchy, but establish a fully elected, democratic government. The protests were reportedly sparked by high and rapidly escalating food prices. There are reports that riot police today attacked demonstrators, though protest organizers say they do not [...]
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July 15, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The protest movement that ousted Hosni Mubarak, after three decades of authoritarian rule has returned tens of thousands of people from all walks of Egyptian life to Tahrir Square, to demand significant democratic reform. Protesters say the military governing council has been slow to prosecute former regime figures guilty of corruption and/or crimes against humanity, [...]
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July 12, 2011 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Gov. Scott Walker has divided Wisconsin like no politician since the 1880s. His government engaged in what critics called a campaign of naked corruption almost from the day he took office. He was accused of illegally using the police to threaten, harass and intimidate the families of his opponents in the state legislature. He was [...]
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June 16, 2011 :: The Editors :: No Comment Yet
Spain’s May 15th movement is often called the revolution of the indignados, indignant at the failure of elective government to solve the problems that increasingly define the lives of ordinary people. The complaint, succinctly, is that the powers that be are collaborating in a systemic failure to live up to the rigors of a healthy, legitimate social contract.
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May 27, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
An effort by the Catalan state police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, to remove protesters from the Plaça Catalunya, by use of force, has ended with at least 125 people reported injured, the demonstrators retaking the square, and the Mossos forced to retreat. Protests have now spread to other parts of the city, as students have reportedly closed la Avinguda Diagonal, one of the city’s main thoroughfares, “in solidarity with the protesters in Plaça Catalunya”.
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May 27, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
In Spain’s capital, Madrid, in the heart of the city, at the Puerta del Sol, from which major roads radiate out toward all corners of the country, thousands of protesters, of all ages and social classes, young and old, have set up camp, literally, in what is now a Europe-wide demand for economic democracy. The [...]
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April 21, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The al-Khalifa regime in Bahrain has seen its international reputation deteriorate from apparent friend of western nations and western values to violent police state using foreign mercenaries to kill its own people. No human rights lawyers were needed to bring about that shift; this was the flagrant, unapologetic and coordinated response of the regime to its people’s fairly moderate demand for political reform.
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March 23, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
The royal family ruling Bahrain has taken a military approach to its people’s demand for more democracy. The royal family, increasingly desperate to hold onto power by any means necessary, first called in foreign mercenaries, then the Saudi army, which now effectively occupies the capital, Manama. Reports coming from Manama say doctors and demonstrators gave told the press that Bahraini and/or Saudi forces surrounded the city’s largest hospital to prevent people attacked by gunfire and teargas from getting treatment.
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March 19, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Yesterday, there were reports of snipers taking up positions around peaceful, unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators, then firing into the crowd, inflicting fatal headshots and hitting other victims in the neck. At least one journalist was killed and another injured in the crackdown, and dozens of journalists have reportedly been targeted —detained, beaten, shot at— since the [...]
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March 17, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
The regime in Bahrain is now officially killing civilians in order to halt what is increasingly a demand for full democratic rights. At first, the democracy movement in Bahrain was not calling for the removal of the king or the al-Khalifa family. But once security forces began cracking down violently on peaceful demonstrators in central [...]
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March 14, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Bahrain’s government has asked for and accepted foreign intervention to help secure the nation against a spreading opposition movement. Pro-democracy demonstrators have said they will view any presence of foreign troops as an illegal foreign occupation. There are concerns the foreign forces might inflame sectarian tensions, as they are Saudi Sunni forces defining a minority [...]
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March 12, 2011 :: The Editors :: 3 Comments
Republican governors have unabashedly joined in their party’s national campaign to undermine the economic recovery and marginalize their people in a concerted effort to harm Pres. Obama and derail his re-election bid. In Florida, the new Tea Partyist governor has refused to accept any federal funding for a high-speed rail project that would have stimulated economic growth and job creation in his state, despite Florida being granted $2.4 billion out of the $2.6 billion needed, and the previous governor having explicitly requested the funds.
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March 10, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Rachel Maddow reports on the Michigan governor’s legislation giving himself emergency powers, including the power to dissolve local governments, take over cities, unincorporate entire municipalities —the equivalent of erasing them from the political map— and remove elected officials, replacing them with his own unilaterally appointed substitutes.
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March 10, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Last night, the Republican party is Wisconsin decided to shirk the law, ignore a direct warning from the Assembly minority leader that their actions were a flagrant violation of the law, ignore established process and pass a fiscal proposal as if it were not a fiscal provision. The Senate majority leader, responsible for staging and carrying out this maneuver, said openly that the ban on collective bargaining was intended to make it more difficult for Pres. Obama to win re-election.
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March 10, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
In Wisconsin last night, the Republican state Senate stripped public employees of nearly all collective bargaining rights in a hastily called vote, in a dubious parliamentary maneuver. They did not notify the public or the minority party of their actions with adequate time for debate, and in just 13 minutes, they erased 50 years of progress on labor rights in Wisconsin.
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March 10, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
The majority leader of the Wisconsin state Senate, Scott Fitzgerald, admitted today on FOX News that the radical budget plan he and his brother and Gov. Walker are trying to force on the people of Wisconsin is a deliberate strategy to cripple the Democratic party in 2012 and make it harder for Pres. Obama to win the state of Wisconsin.
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March 9, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate have voted to force through a bill banning collective bargaining for public employees in the state. The move is being described as a new parliamentary move, without precedent and possibly without any legal foundation. There are now accusations of clear ethics violations in the process used to force the measure through, and threats of legal action.
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March 9, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
The governor of Michigan is trying to force through the legislature a bill that would establish emergency rule, LITERALLY. Gov. Snyder is seeking emergency powers that would enable him to 1) unilaterally declare a “financial emergency”, 2) disincorporate entire municipal governments, 3) dismiss elected officials with no replacement election to follow, 4) seize control of local civil services, 5) hand taxpayer money, services and POWERS to private, for-profit firms.
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March 2, 2011 :: staff :: 3 Comments
After the governor of Wisconsin first ordered the state capitol closed to the public, then ejected protesters, then refused to ease restrictions on access, a judge has ordered the closure reversed, requiring that the state government allow full public access to the building during business hours. The governor’s officials responded that by allowing public officials, staff and scheduled visitors to enter, they were already in compliance.
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February 27, 2011 :: The Editors :: 2 Comments
Pres. Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, yesterday said to the UN that “When a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against [his] people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule.” The Obama administration has now taken the position that Muammar Qadhafi can no longer be recognized as leader of Libya, and an interim government should be instituted to oversee a transition to democracy.
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February 26, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Last week, a man pretending to be oil billionaire David Koch, one of the major Republican donors thought to be behind the concerted operation by Republican governors to strip public employees of collective bargaining rights, spoke with Gov. Scott Walke by phone. During the conversation, Gov. Walker revealed much about his own thinking in relation to using the claim of a “budget crisis” to impose massive cuts on public servants’ compensation and to strip them of basic workplace fairness rights.
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February 26, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
On Friday, Republicans in the Wisconsin state Assembly used unusual rules to push through legislation stripping public servants of collective bargaining rights, at 1:00 am. Opponents and Democrats chanted “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at the Republicans as they filed unceremoniously out of the chamber. The vote has been assailed by critics as a political assault on groups and individuals who don’t support the Republican party. Even FOX News has reported that the bill is “pure politics” and that the so-called “budget crisis” is a false claim being used by Republicans to attack their opponents.
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February 26, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
In a desperate move to force his controversial budget measure through the state legislature, Gov. Scott Walker, Republican of Wisconsin, is now threatening to fire 12,000 state employees. Critics say there is no budget shortfall significant enough to warrant this action, and that Walker is again using threats and aggression to force his legislation through. The bill he is backing would strip public employees of all collective bargaining rights.
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February 26, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
Benghazi, Tobruk and much of the east of Libya are now said to be firmly under the control of anti-Qadhafi protesters. Tripoli and smaller surrounding cities have been the scene of intense gun battles, reportedly including helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled grenades fired into crowds of demonstrators. Today, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on [...]
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February 26, 2011 :: The Editors :: 2 Comments
Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, today called for “concrete action” by the Security Council to stop the violence in Libya. He did not make clear if the action he considered “concrete” would be sanctions or military action. While no UN official has raised this prospect explicitly, there is mounting speculation there could [...]
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February 23, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
On Tuesday, thousands of demonstrators protesting the Ohio governor’s plan to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public servants were denied access to their state’s capitol. The refusal to allow them entry last for hours, until finally, thousands were able to enter. The governor has already been accused to trying to thwart opposition to his plan by blocking basic rights and denying the people access to their government.
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February 22, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
This ad is now running statewide in Wisconsin. Firefighters and other public servants are joining together to oppose the campaign to eliminate collective bargaining rights in their state. They are calling on all Wisconsinites to stand with them in defense of basic civil rights.
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February 22, 2011 :: staff :: 4 Comments
As Muammar Qadhafi has ordered his air force to attack the capital city, Tripoli, his regime appears to be collapsing. According to the Egyptian military’s Facebook page, Libyan border guards have abandoned their posts. Two Libyan air force colonels reportedly flew their fighter jets to Malta, where they defected and revealed that Qadhafi had ordered the bombing of protesters. They seem to have fled to avoid participating in the violence against unarmed civilians. Qadhafi’s own UN ambassador has accused him of “genocide” and says the UN delegation stands with the protesters.
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February 21, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
As tens of thousands rallied for the 7th consecutive day at the state capitol of Wisconsin, the governor has repeated his demand that Democrats return to “debate” the legislation, which he says will not be negotiated or altered in any way. The near total ban on collective bargaining rights for public servants in the state of Wisconsin, as proposed by Gov. Walker —in office less than 2 months— has been described as the most extreme reversal of labor rights in US history.
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February 21, 2011 :: staff :: 3 Comments
When the civil disobedience of peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations spreading from Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen reached Libya, there were clear indications of the regime’s sense of its own fragility. Demonstrators occupied a government housing project, demanding better quality housing, and the government responded with a $24 billion fund for improved housing. In the wake of the fall of Hosni Mubarak, demonstrations in Libya have intensified and the Qadhafi regime has used extreme violence to end the protests.
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February 21, 2011 :: The Editors :: 4 Comments
The protest rally opposing Gov. Walker’s draconian plan to eliminate collective bargaining rights is now entering its second week. 14 Democratic lawmakers remain outside the state, in boycott of the plan to impose Walker’s radical agenda on the people of Wisconsin. And today the news comes the last union that had not abandoned Walker, the state police union, has now done so.
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February 20, 2011 :: Denver Lessing :: 4 Comments
The last week has seen mounting protests in Madison, Wisconsin, with crowds occupying the state capitol grounds swelling from 10,000 to 25,000 to 30,000, 40,000 and now on Saturday, 60,000. Schools have been closed, and university faculty and students are striking in order to participate in the protests. The demonstrators oppose Gov. Walker’s plan to strip public employees of all collective bargaining rights.
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February 20, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
What is democracy? That is the first question that is always asked by pro-regime elements, whether in 18th-century Britain or France or 21st-century Egypt or Bahrain, because their aim is to muddy the waters and oppose the spread of democratic freedom. Free and open access to factual information is the cornerstone right of all citizens of a free society. Journalists are the “Fourth Estate” —in the words attributed to Edmund Burke, by Thomas Carlyle—, the watchdogs of the people’s access to truth.
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February 20, 2011 :: staff :: One Comment
After 5 days of violent clashes, pro-democracy demonstrators in Bahrain flooded Pearl Square and caused the military to back out. The king has ordered his son to enter into reform talks with protest leaders and has called for an end to police violence. Tensions remain high, as the population of Bahrain has been shocked and angered by the regime’s violent attacks on civilians, and protesters’ demands for reform have widened.
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February 19, 2011 :: staff :: 3 Comments
The advocacy group Common Cause has found evidence that Clarence Thomas’ office appears to have lied about his participation in a retreat hosted by the Koch brothers, three years ago, and that Thomas appears to be concealing a gift from the oil billionaires, due to the conflict of interest it suggests. It now appears Thomas reported his appearance at the event, at which his office said he “made a brief stop-by”, as an all-expenses-paid four-day trip to Palm Springs.
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February 19, 2011 :: staff :: 2 Comments
From Tripoli to Benghazi, protesters have gathered in the thousands, to demand reform and an end to the dictatorship of Muammar Qadhafi. The security forces’ crackdown against the demonstrators has been persistent and intensifying, and new reports from Libya now say at least 84 people have been killed.
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February 18, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Forty thousand Wisconsinites today gathered at, and inside of, the state capitol, to protest Gov. Walker’s plan to eliminate labor rights for public employees. Today, state Assembly Democrats delivered a letter to Gov. Walker, demanding a meeting and offering concessions from union members who have agreed to the financial cuts; Walker refused, saying there was no way to guarantee that costs could be cut for every municipality in Wisconsin unless all collective bargaining rights were eliminated.
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February 18, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Reports this evening from Bahrain say a column of mourners, who had been attending a funeral for unarmed demonstrators killed by security forces yesterday, were “ambushed” as they moved toward Pearl Square. Witnesses reported seeing the security forces “fall back” and take up positions suitable for attacking the demonstrators once they entered a street that would channel them to the square.
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February 17, 2011 :: staff :: 3 Comments
The protest movement taking over the capital of Wisconsin, where tens of thousands of ordinary people have flocked to the state Capitol building, led today to an effort by Democratic lawmakers to prevent a vote that would strip the state’s public employees of fundamental labor rights. The 14 Democratic lawmakers crossed the state line and are seeking asylum in a neighboring state, reportedly Illinois. (Some states will extradite truant lawmakers; some will not.) They are said to be seeking shelter at an undisclosed location.
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February 17, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
An ABC News reporter in Bahrain has been violently assaulted by a “gang of thugs” working for the government’s security forces. The effort to eliminate witnesses (media), following the same pattern attempted by the Mubarak regime in Egypt, appears to be underway. There are reports emerging from Pearl Square in the center of the Bahraini capital Manama that security forces have fired teargas into crowds of unarmed demonstrators.
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February 16, 2011 :: The Editors :: Comments Off
Lara Logan —a courageous CBS News reporter who was abducted by the Mubarak regime, falsely accused of being an Israeli spy and held without charge, for reporting on the protest movement in Egypt— is now reportedly recovering from a sexual assault she suffered while covering the demonstrations. She reportedly was attacked by a “dangerous element” on the very day Hosni Mubarak left power.
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February 15, 2011 :: staff :: 3 Comments
Demonstrators in Tehran yesterday defied an official ban on their proposed rally to support the people of Egypt and their ongoing process of democratic change. Security forces clashed with demonstrators, firing tear gas into the crowds. There are reports at least one person was killed, and hardliners within the regime are now calling for opposition leaders to be rounded up and executed.
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February 13, 2011 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
What took place in Egypt between Jan. 25 and Feb. 11, 2011, was a revolution, but it was non-violent and it joined together disparate ideological factions, rich and poor, old and young, Christian and Muslim. It gave the lie to the notion that moderation in politics cannot be a revolutionary force for transformative change.
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February 13, 2011 :: staff :: Comments Off
Thousands of demonstrators are gathering at Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Demonstrations are being staged across the nation to protest against Berlusconi’s alleged sexual indiscretions and political corruption. Supporters of the conservative politician say the protests are partisan in nature.
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