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May 18, 2013

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Tag: Civil Rights


AP/Julio Cortez

Police State Argument Begins After Bombing Suspect’s Capture

After the capture of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, civil rights activists and officials are disputing whether it was acceptable for police to deprive him of his Miranda rights, and whether he should be classified as an enemy combatant and denied a lawyer.

Posted on Apr 20, 2013 READ MORE



kennethkonica (CC BY-ND 2.0)

Lil Wayne’s Lyrical Fascism

In a remix version of the song “Karate Chop” by rapper Future, Lil Wayne mocked 14-year-old African-American Emmett Till, a boy whose body was mutilated and tortured by white racists in Mississippi in 1955 after he allegedly whistled at a white woman.

Posted on Apr 13, 2013 READ MORE



Henry Giroux

Angela Davis: Education and the Meaning of Freedom

Occasionally we meet the unsullied images, history and legacy of intellectuals who symbolize a rare combination of civic courage, political commitment and rigorous scholarship. Angela Davis is one of those exemplary individuals.

Posted on Apr 11, 2013 READ MORE


Fighting DOMA: A Very Long Engagement

Hear remarks from Edie Windsor, the lead plaintiff in the case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act; watch clips from the documentary that tells her story of love in spite of the state; and hear a widely read activist argue that winning the right for gays to marry is not a strategy to achieve structural change.

Posted on Mar 28, 2013 READ MORE


Tarekman

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Posted on Mar 20, 2013 READ MORE        



AP/dapd/Berthold Stadler

Rethinking Black History Month

The modern civil rights movement occurred long before millions of Americans were born, but many participants and observers are still available to recount their stories.

Posted on Feb 28, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Evan Vucci

Jesse Jackson Jr. Loses the Right to Vote

Pleading guilty to fraud and facing as many as five years in prison, former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. tearfully acknowledged Wednesday that he was losing one of the rights for which his father fought.

Posted on Feb 20, 2013 READ MORE



Rosa Parks, Now and Forever

On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Ala., thus launching the modern-day civil-rights movement.

Posted on Jan 30, 2013 READ MORE


Rep. John Lewis Schools Rush Limbaugh on Civil Rights Movement

Rush Limbaugh asked on his radio program Friday, “If a lot of African-Americans back in the ’60s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed Selma?”

Posted on Jan 20, 2013 READ MORE



AP/Ivan Sekretarev

The Humanitarians Who Came In From the Cold

Russia is cracking down further on political dissent by requiring foreign humanitarian workers to register, more or less, as spies.

Posted on Dec 18, 2012 READ MORE


Four More Years: Now What?

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Gay America’s best election yet; Robert Scheer on Obama’s second term; marijuana legalization; and Internet freedom.

Posted on Nov 9, 2012 READ MORE



Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey (CC-BY)

Four More Years: Now What?

This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: Gay America’s best election yet; Robert Scheer on Obama’s second term; marijuana legalization; and Internet freedom.

Posted on Nov 9, 2012 READ MORE



AP/Sergey Ponomarev

Pussy Rioter Released from Jail

A Moscow appeals court has unexpectedly freed Yekaterina Samutsevich, the oldest of the three members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot who were jailed for an anti-Putin performance earlier this year.

Posted on Oct 10, 2012 READ MORE



AP/Alex Brandon

This Far-Right Supreme Court Is Reason Enough to Vote Obama

Four of the sitting justices are 74 or older. Each can be expected to step down over the next four to eight years.

Posted on Oct 3, 2012 READ MORE



AP/Steve Miller

What Is Happening to Muslims Will Happen to the Rest of Us

A disturbing pattern of gross infringements on basic civil liberties, put in place in the name of national security, has poisoned our legal system.

Posted on Oct 1, 2012 READ MORE



A Voting Issue That Isn’t (Video)

When Michelle Obama called voting rights “the movement of our era” in a speech Saturday night, she didn’t specifically mention the Republican-led crusade for restrictive voter identification laws. She didn’t have to.

Posted on Sep 24, 2012 READ MORE


Was Activist Richard Aoki an FBI Informant?

Richard Aoki was respected as a “pioneering political activist and revolutionary in the Asian-American community” for his involvement in the civil rights struggle in the 1960s and beyond. Seth Rosenfeld’s new book “Subversives” presents evidence that Aoki was an FBI informant. Scholar Diane Fujino, author of a biography on Aoki, disagrees.

Posted on Aug 23, 2012 READ MORE



Viktor Nagornyy (CC BY 2.0)

NYPD Spying on Muslims Led to No Terror Cases

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg points to the NYPD’s covert counterterrorism program as a model for the rest of the country. But according to a deposition given by the department’s intelligence commander earlier this summer and unsealed on Monday, police eavesdropping on conversations between Muslims has led to no terror investigations.

Posted on Aug 22, 2012 READ MORE


Uncivil Disunion

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Posted on Aug 5, 2012 READ MORE        



kainet (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Senator Moves to Rein In Warrantless Spying

A bill put forward by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., proposes to slap some limits on the U.S. government’s collecting of information on Americans under its warrantless electronic spying program.

Posted on Aug 4, 2012 READ MORE


The Emerging ‘Drone’ Culture

The age of the drones has arrived. It’s not possible to uninvent these Orwellian devices, but we can—and must—restrain their use.

Posted on Aug 3, 2012 READ MORE



Furryscaly (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Privacy by Design

Nicholas Merrill is tired of waiting for Congress to protect Americans’ privacy online. So he plans to force the matter by changing the way telecommunication companies do business.

Posted on Jul 24, 2012 READ MORE



maveric2003 (CC BY 2.0)

How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta

Down the road only a few generations, the millennium of Magna Carta, one of the great events in the establishment of civil and human rights, will arrive. Whether it will be celebrated, mourned, or ignored is not at all clear.

Posted on Jul 24, 2012 READ MORE



Wikipedia

Glenn Greenwald Will Write for The Guardian

Did you hear? Salon’s star blogger is moving his soapbox to The Guardian, where he says he will reach a new audience while retaining full editorial control over his political writing.

Posted on Jul 20, 2012 READ MORE


One Republican, One Vote

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Posted on Jul 16, 2012 READ MORE


The Struggle to Protect the Vote

Sixteen states have passed laws that could restrict the right of people of color to cast their ballot by requiring that voters at the polls show photo ID, which some may lack or find difficult to obtain. “Democracy Now!” spends an hour discussing the issue with 13-term Georgia Congressman John Lewis, a key figure of the civil rights movement.

Posted on Jul 10, 2012 READ MORE



Mr. Fish

Obscenity

To suddenly realize at age 7 that balls and testicles referred to the same thing was a real eye-opener for me. It meant that the obscenity of the word balls was not intrinsic to the thing that it referred to, but rather to the word itself.

Posted on Jun 28, 2012 READ MORE        



"Democracy Now!"

NDAA Update: Another Legal Victory

A federal judge on Wednesday said that her earlier ruling on the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act applied to everyone, not just the plaintiffs in the case. She made the clarification in upholding a preliminary injunction that would block the military from indefinitely detaining American citizens it accused of supporting terrorists. Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges (above) is among the plaintiffs.

Posted on Jun 8, 2012 READ MORE



AP/Matt Rourke

Black Community Poised to Follow Obama’s Leadership on Gay Rights

Since the president’s affirmation of marriage equality, a series of African-American organizations, politicians, sports and entertainment figures have also announced their support.

Posted on May 23, 2012 READ MORE  |  5 COMMENTS


The NAACP’s Relevance Step

With its support for gay marriage, the NAACP has done more than strike a blow for fairness and equality.

Posted on May 21, 2012 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT



AP/Mary Altaffer

A Victory for All of Us

We hoped we could draw attention to the injustice of the law. None of us thought we would win. But every once in a while the gods smile on the damned.

Posted on May 18, 2012 READ MORE  |  134 COMMENTS


Yes, We Can Walk and Chew Gum

Republicans now insist that America cannot simultaneously walk the walk on equal rights and also chew economic gum.

Posted on May 18, 2012 READ MORE  |  9 COMMENTS



YouTube/NCPCF2010

Truthdigger of the Week: Stephen F. Downs

It’s safe to assume that Big Brother would still have prevailed over Winston Smith had the ill-fated protagonist of George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” been helped by public defender Stephen Downs. But we have reason to believe that Downs, who represents Muslim activists in trials that amount to little more than terrorist witch hunts, would not have backed down.

Posted on Apr 20, 2012 READ MORE  |  17 COMMENTS



Wikimedia Commons/Fern H. Logan

Elizabeth Catlett: An Appreciation

The impact of her sculpture Target extends to the thousands of anonymous people of color, mostly but not exclusively younger males, who are routinely subjected to racist harassment and attacks by police and others throughout the United States.

Posted on Apr 16, 2012 READ MORE  |  2 COMMENTS



Illustration by Mr. Fish

First They Come for the Muslims

Another Muslim activist has gone to prison as a result of the government’s criminalization of what people say and believe.

Posted on Apr 16, 2012 READ MORE  |  418 COMMENTS


SCOTUS Up the Wazoo

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Posted on Apr 3, 2012 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


Former Sen. Feingold on the Loss of Liberties

After the release of former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold’s new book, “While America Sleeps: A Wake-up Call for the Post-9/11 Era,” Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald spoke with him about the deliberate curtailment of American civil liberties over the last 10 years.

Posted on Feb 25, 2012 READ MORE  |  17 COMMENTS



The Stranger

The Evergreen State Needs One Vote for Marriage Equality

One senatorial vote stands between Washington state and gay marriage. Five legislators remain undecided. With a view to tipping the scales, Seattle’s Stranger newspaper has cataloged their indecision, complete with contact info for readers interested in giving them a lean.

Posted on Jan 22, 2012 READ MORE


Ron Paul and Our Selective Definition of Bigotry

The Texan’s candidacy is showing that the conventional definition of intolerable bigotry is disturbingly narrow—and embarrassingly selective.

Posted on Jan 20, 2012 READ MORE  |  84 COMMENTS



AP / Dusan Vranic

Why I’m Suing Barack Obama

On my behalf, attorneys have challenged a law that allows imprisonment of U.S. citizens without trial.

Posted on Jan 16, 2012 READ MORE  |  135 COMMENTS


Liberty Detained

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Posted on Dec 29, 2011 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT



AP / Dan Balilty

Israelis Clash in a Struggle of Orthodoxy

Attempts by ultraconservative Jews to impose their religious views on others in the town of Beit Shemesh have given rise to protests and a national debate about the character of what is, nobody denies, a religious state.

Posted on Dec 28, 2011 READ MORE  |  22 COMMENTS



Charles Chan (CC-BY-ND)

The Two Faces of China

Don’t hold your breath waiting for any kind of Occupy Beijing movement to set up camp.

Posted on Dec 1, 2011 READ MORE  |  7 COMMENTS


Jackie O Called MLK a ‘Phony’

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Posted on Sep 14, 2011 READ MORE  |  1 COMMENT



Library of Congress / Dick DeMarsico

The Real Dr. King: An Extremist for Justice

We tend to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. we want to honor, not the Martin Luther King Jr. who actually existed.

Posted on Aug 28, 2011 READ MORE  |  16 COMMENTS



Håkan Dahlström (CC-BY)

Irony in Norway

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, leader of the Labor Party whose youth activists were so viciously targeted by right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik, is warning against “a witch hunt on expression.” At the same time, the right-wing Progress Party is looking to exploit Breivik’s mass murder to revise a few civil liberties.

Posted on Aug 1, 2011 READ MORE  |  3 COMMENTS



Flickr / cliff1066 (CC-BY)

Controversy Over Rosa Parks Account of a ‘Near-Rape’

Rosa Parks, “mother of the civil rights movement,” was discovered recently to have written a first-person account of a young black housekeeper being sexually accosted by a white man, but whether she was describing something that happened to her or was writing a work of fiction is uncertain. (An earlier version of this Truthdig item was based on an AP report that changed afterward when new information surfaced.)

Posted on Jul 29, 2011 READ MORE



AP / Joseph Kaczmarek

Gone With the Papers

The increasing fusion of news and entertainment and the ruthless drive by corporations to destroy the traditional news business are leaving us deaf, dumb and blind.

Posted on Jun 27, 2011 READ MORE  |  131 COMMENTS



Flickr / wallyg

N.Y. Religious Groups Exempt From Gay Rights Legislation

Language protecting New York churches, synagogues and other religious institutions from lawsuit and penalty upon refusal to perform same-sex marriages was one of the key amendments that won Republican support for Friday’s historic gay rights legislation. (more)

Posted on Jun 25, 2011 READ MORE  |  30 COMMENTS



AP / Ng Han Guan

Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Is Sprung From Jail

It took two months and not-so-subtle protests from within and beyond the art world, but on Wednesday the Chinese government freed 54-year-old artist Ai Weiwei from prison, hinting at tax issues and not artistic dissent as the reason behind his stint in lockup.

Posted on Jun 22, 2011 READ MORE  |  4 COMMENTS


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A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
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