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By D. T. Max
$27.95
By Alan Abramowitz
$21
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Flickr / mikedarnell1974
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Leonard Cohen performed in a soccer stadium near Tel Aviv on Thursday over the objections of activists who want artists and entertainers to stay away from the Holy Land. Unlike Madonna, as The Washington Post points out, Cohen donated his earnings to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation and managed to avoid wrapping himself in the Israeli flag.
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AP / Gene J. Puskar
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By Chris Hedges — The rage of the disposed is fracturing the country, dividing it into camps that are unmoored from the political mainstream. Movements are building on the ends of the political spectrum that have lost faith in the mechanisms of democratic change. You can’t blame them. But unless we on the left move quickly, this rage will be captured by a virulent and racist right wing, one that seeks a disturbing proto-fascism.
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wordpress.com
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As protests in Iran continue, the extent to which the government will go to silence dissent has sunk to even further depths of ridiculousness. Protesters at a Tehran soccer match chanted and waved green banners, to which government censors responded by delaying the telecast of the game and editing out the crowd noise and close-ups.
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AP / Ben Curtis
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Protest returned to the streets of Iran Friday after an annual rally in support of the Palestinian cause turned into a massive demonstration against the government and the disputed presidential election three months ago.
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John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri —
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If these anti-Obama marchers are to be believed, fascism and socialism are the same thing, abortion caused 9/11 and “Glenn Beck is such a logical thinker.” There’s a whole pile of crazy where that came from.
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Flickr / Shahram Sharif
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Six people are on trial in Iran for allegedly stirring up trouble and “undermining the Islamic government system” after the country’s controversial presidential elections in June. Some critics are calling the legal actions “show trials,” according to the BBC.
Posted on Sep 14, 2009
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Muntadhar al-Zaidi’s simple but powerful gesture of lobbing his shoes at then-President George W. Bush brought him international notoriety, praise, scorn and nine months in prison. Now it looks like the Iraqi journalist is nearing the end of his jail time.
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AP / Daymon J. Hartley
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A 63-year-old anti-abortion activist who had been staging a protest, reportedly involving graphic images of fetuses, in front of a Michigan high school was killed in a drive-by shooting Friday, according to The New York Times.
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Collage: celeb9.com/hearsay.cc
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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a way of popping up in any number of seemingly unrelated arenas across the world, such as the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, where a planned Tel Aviv-themed program has spurred several entertainers, including Jane Fonda, Danny Glover and David Byrne, as well as writers and filmmakers, to sign a letter of protest that’s shaking things up with just days to go before the fest begins. All of the 10 films in City to City, a new program at the festival, will focus on the Israeli city.
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bbc.co.uk
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Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported Monday that local authorities have admitted that a 25-year-old detainee who was arrested in the wave of protests following June’s presidential election in Iran died from abuse at the hands of prison officials, according to The New York Times.
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AP / Alex Brandon
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So far, we’ve had the angry protests, the scuffles at suddenly volatile town hall meetings, and no resolution of the health care reform argument from our elected leaders, but President Barack Obama is now embarking on a campaign to try to sway public opinion on the issue using ... a series of town hall meetings across the country. Updated
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We’re sympathetic to members of the House who find themselves getting yelled at by hecklers with less-than-pure motives, but calling that behavior “un-American” is probably ill-advised when you represent a body of government that famously had a committee by the same name.
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By David Sirota — Thanks to the Khaki Pants Offensive in the Great American Health Care and Tax War, finally, there’s no pretense. Finally, the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd’s ugliest traits are there for all to behold.
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AP / Vahid Salemi
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Amid street battles, the deaths of 30 protesters and weeks-long accusations of electoral corruption, everyone’s favorite Twitter-bobo doll, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has taken the oath of office for Iran’s presidency once again. Several countries, the U.S. being one of them, have said they will not send a letter of congratulations. So there.
Posted on Aug 5, 2009
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Taser
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Many a protester—and the occasional speeding grannie—has faced off against Taser-wielding law enforcement officers. The Man now has a new rapid-fire stun gun that multiplies all of the ethical problems of gaining “voluntary compliance.” After the jump, a video of Taser employees zapping each other.
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AP / Office of the Supreme Leader
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Although Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, aka Iran’s supreme leader, has called the recent protests over the contested election evidence of foreign powers meddling in his country’s affairs, his words didn’t seem to sway Iranian opponents, who on Monday proposed a referendum to sort out the issue.
Posted on Jul 20, 2009
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AP photo
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The crowds that emerged in Tehran on Thursday to once again contest the recent national election numbered only in the low thousands, but the first mass protest in 11 days demonstrated that the postelection unrest has yet to be resolved in Iran.
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Flickr / .faramarz
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On Tuesday, Iran’s three leading opposition candidates formed a unified front to demand an end to the government’s harsh crackdown on protesters and the release of all those detained. Meanwhile, in a radio interview, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thanked Iranians for re-electing him and promised to “dedicate [his] entire existence to serving the people.”
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Xinhua
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Chinese state media are reporting more than 150 people dead and more than 800 injured in what the China Daily describes as a riot on the part of Uighur “outlaws.” Those figures and the nature of the protests are fiercely disputed by Uighur groups abroad, which say police fired on peaceful demonstrators.
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In this video footage released by CNN on Friday, protesters en route to a rally in support of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya find their travels cut short when a troop of soldiers, apparently representing the same military force that ousted Zelaya last Sunday and replaced him with Roberto Micheletti, move in and shoot out their bus tires.
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typepad.com
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A Los Angeles police review panel comprised mostly of cops has refused to fire any of the officers involved in the 2007 May Day brutality in MacArthur Park. The city shelled out $13 million in settlements because of the melee, but the worst punishment handed down was a 20-day suspension for one cop.
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The president opened his Tuesday press conference by saying, “The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions… .”
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White House / Lawrence Jackson
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The president reiterated Tuesday that he has no intention of “interfering with Iran’s affairs,” but he also dialed up his criticism of the regime’s crackdown from “it is of concern to me” to “I strongly condemn these unjust actions.”
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Flickr / @@:@@
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Iran’s Guardian Council has found “no major fraud or breach in the election” and will not annul the vote, a spokesman announced Tuesday. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, jumped into the fray, calling on the Iranian government to “respect fundamental civil and political rights.”
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AP photo / STR
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By Robert Fisk — You don’t overthrow Islamic revolutions with car headlights. And definitely not with candles. Peaceful protest might have served Gandhi well, but the supreme leader’s Iran is not going to worry about a few thousand demonstrators on the streets, even if they do cry “Allahu Akbar” from their rooftops every night.
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AP photo / Ali Zare
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By Chris Hedges — Iranians do not need or want us to teach them about liberty and representative government. We gave to the Iranian people the corrupt regime of the shah and his savage secret police and the primitive clerics that rose out of the swamp of the dictator’s Iran.
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Flickr / .faramarz
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Iranian election officials announced over the weekend that in 50 districts, there were more votes cast than voters. It’s a glimmer of hope for protesters, who stayed home Sunday as the government flooded the streets of Tehran with security personnel. State media reported the arrest of 457 people following Saturday’s violence.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The president’s initial caution served the interests of freedom by making clear that the revolt against Iran’s flawed election is homegrown. As the struggle continues, we cannot pretend that we are indifferent to its outcome.
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Flickr / .faramarz
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Protesters defied the supreme leader’s threat of a crackdown and marched Saturday in the streets of Tehran, where they were reportedly met with tear gas and gunfire. Foreign media were unable to verify state television reports that 10 people were killed in Saturday’s confrontation between police and “terrorists.”
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John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune —
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AP photo / Ben Curtis
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Iran’s Guardian Council has announced a recount of disputed votes from last week’s election as massive protests continued in the streets of Tehran. It’s not clear how extensive the recount will be or whether it could threaten to upset the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who flew to Russia on Tuesday for a meeting there.
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The anti-Proposition 8 protests were one form of gay rights activism taking place recently around Los Angeles, but a related issue was the subject of a rally led by former Lt. Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and Arab linguist who was discharged from the Army National Guard earlier this month for coming out publicly: Choi wanted to remind the visiting president about his pledge to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
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Forty years after he helped destroy SDS, Mark Rudd condemns his role in Weatherman as “the greatest single mistake of my life … a historical crime.” How did it happen and what did it mean? Why did peaceful protest give way to violent resistance? What lessons are to be learned from the failure to spurn the seductions of charismatic cults?
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By Eugene Robinson — The cool, cerebral White House might logically conclude that Wednesday’s decidedly uncool, uncerebral “tea bag” protests were intellectually and politically incoherent, and therefore not worth a second thought. That would be a dangerous mistake.
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Yes, Keith Olbermann and other pundits (paging Anderson Cooper) had a field day with the right wing’s adoption of “tea bagging” as the driving metaphor behind their Tax Day protests. But no, the double entendres didn’t start “on the blogs,” as Bill O’Reilly’s “nice lady” guest Amanda Carpenter suggested on his show.
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A group of determined Afghan women took to the streets of Kabul on Wednesday, suffering chants of “Dogs!” from a much larger crowd in order to challenge a law that essentially legalizes marital rape. The AP reports on a scene that underscores the complexities of that country—there were more women among the angry counterprotesters than in the women’s rights group.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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The demonstrations that have vexed Bangkok for the last few days took an ugly turn Monday as the Thai army fired at a crowd of protesters and ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called for revolution. Current PM Abhisit Vejjajiva, the object of the protesters’ ire, has promised to restore order, though he himself rose to power on the back of public unrest.
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AP photo / Shakh Aivazov
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During last summer’s war, Mikhail Saakashvili was beseeching the international community to help his country fend off “Russian aggression,” but now the biggest problem of the Georgian president is rising from within his nation’s own borders.
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Two protesters storm the stage during a talk by Lawrence Summers, who tries to laugh off the incident. If only there were something funny about President Obama’s top economic adviser making $8 million last year from some of the financial firms that have benefited from his economic policies.
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President Obama’s NATO allies may have responded favorably to his call to ramp up the war effort in Afghanistan, but anti-war demonstrators near the French-German border made their opinions known with protests following the photo ops in Strasbourg, France, on Saturday.
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By Amy Goodman — A former police chief of Seattle—who directed the harsh action there against 1999’s WTO protesters—has changed his views on protests, as well as on drugs. The G-20 leaders meeting in London should heed his words.
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AP photo / Laurent Cipriani
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Four higher-ups at the Caterpillar construction equipment office in Grenoble, France, were taken hostage on Tuesday by hundreds of employees demanding negotiations after the company announced it would cut 700 jobs. Even more startling is that this latest episode was but one of three similar boss-blockading incidents in France this month.
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AP photo / B.K. Bangash
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Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was placed under house arrest in Lahore on Sunday as opposition groups prepared to march on Islamabad to call for the reinstatement of judges deposed by former President Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali Zardari, had said shortly after taking power last fall that he would reverse his predecessor’s ruling but has yet to make good on his pledge. Update 2: Crisis averted (sort of) ... for now.
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nytimes.com
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Anti-government demonstrations in Pakistan were thwarted by police Thursday, as opposition leaders were arrested and protesters were stopped after the government claimed that such public gatherings could be sites for terrorist attacks.
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By Amy Goodman — Obama promises health-care reform, but he has taken single-payer health care off the table. While single-payer reduces the administrative costs and removes the profit that insurance companies add to health-care delivery, such solutions get almost no space in the debate.
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The publication of Sontag’s early diaries provides a revelatory look at the self-inventions of the late writer.
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Guantanamo Prisoner’s Case Demonstrates Unfairness of Military Commissions
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