Inauguration 2017 Special Coverage w/ Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader & More
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Special coverage in the Trump Era
From Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency site: "44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their network of political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney."
Dark Money author Jane Mayer on The Dangers of President Pence, New Yorker, Oct. 23 issue on-line
Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs? November 28, 2017 By Jane Mayer
..."This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?"...
"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America" see: our site, and George Monbiot's essay on this key book by historian Nancy MacLean.
Full interview with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer March 29, 2017, Democracy Now! about her article, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency."
Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women's March on Washington
The Economics of Happiness -- shorter version
Local Futures offers a free 19-minute abridged version of its award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness. It "brings us voices of hope of in a time of crisis." www.localfutures.org.
What's New?
August 21, 2008
Finally! The UN Gets One Right
August 4, 2008
Last week, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously confirmed Secretary General BanKi-Moon’s appointment for the post of UN high commissioner for human rights: the distinguished South African jurist Navanethem (“Navi”) Pillay. Women’s rights activists around the world can celebrate.
But let’s digress a moment.
UN appointments are often notoriously based more on political and funding considerations than qualifications. Last spring, DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era), a network of Third World researchers, activists, and policymakers, openly expressed dismay at the choice of a Spaniard to head the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) rather than the Global South woman recommended by the UN selection panel. Sociologist Ines Alberdi, former Madrid assemblywoman and a European Union's Equal Opportunities Unit expert, had admittedly little development experience. The panel had endorsed Gita Sen: gender expert, professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, adjunct lecturer at the Center for Population and Development Studies at Harvard’s School of Public Health, and DAWN co-founder. “The selection committee ranked none of the others appropriate” for this post, noted DAWN, claiming funding concerns and “open political pressure from the government of Spain” affected the decision (Spain was a leading 2006-2007 UNIFEM donor: $11.4 million).
But back to the Good News.
When did you last hear a high-profile human-rights official say: This insidious business of gender-based crimes has never been given the serious attention it deserves?
Or: [W]omen's rights should be brought out of the closet, out of the ghetto?
Or : There is a lack of mainstream recognition of gender-persecution, and so much evidence of widespread abuse?
Finally, a human-rights leader who considers women human...
Read full article here.