Truthout

As a part of delegations over the past four years that have made their way to Gaza, we have stopped in Cairo to pick up needed authorizations. This week as a part of an "emergency" delegation to Gaza after the 8 day Israeli attack that killed 165 and wounded several thousands, we arrived in Cairo as Egyptians opposed to President Morsi's massive assumption of powers took to the streets.

We've been in and out of Tahrir Square all day. It's almost midnight and tens of thousands of Egyptians have been to the square in the middle of Cairo that was the center of the revolution against dictator Hosni Mubarak, to protest the new President's decrees on the judiciary and legislative branches of government.

In 1992, Stevie Wonder, long a civil rights activist and defender of the rights of all humans, released a song called "It's Wrong" about the Apartheid regime of South Africa.

The lyrics were explicit in their condemnation of the "atrocities" of Apartheid as "people abusing" and "oppression".

Stevie was even arrested on Valentine's Day 1985 for protesting against Apartheid outside the Washington DC embassy of South Africa.

His activism against Apartheid -- the South African regime's policy of segregation of native Africans and their colonial rulers originating from Holland -- makes his current position on Palestine curious, to say the least.

On November 20th, 2012, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska denied bail to Jeremy Hammond, a 27-year-old Chicago activist accused of hacking into the private intelligence firm Stratfor and releasing information to Wikileaks. On November 22nd, 2012 a communique from hackers highlighted Judge Preska's failure to disclose that her husband, Thomas J Kaveler is an employee of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, a current Stratfor client and associate, and moreover was himself a victim of the alleged hack (SOURCE). After independent confirmation of these facts, activists and attorneys have issued a call for Judge Preska to immediately recuse herself for failure to disclose this conflict of interest. At 1pm on Thursday, November 29th in New York's Foley Square (MAP) activists, attorneys, and friends of Jeremy Hammond, including NLG President, Gideon Oliver,Andy Bichlbaum co-creator of the Yes Men, John Knefel cohost of Radio Dispatch, and Chicago activist Natalie Wahlberg will rally and hold a press conference to brief the media on their efforts to see Judge Preska recuse herself and assure Hammond access to a fair trial and due process. 

The new Mexican American Indigenous Studies program must be built on the foundation of the previous program that had demonstrated quantitative and qualitative measures of success. Therefore, the implementation of the Mexican American Indigenous Studies program and the other Ethnic Studies Programs must take budgetary priority over the implementation of the Multicultural Program.

This economy isn't working for most Americans. The faltering recovery has begun creating jobs and lowering deficits, but more than 20 million are in need of full-time work. Those finding jobs struggle with lower wages and less security. The richest 1 percent is capturing virtually all of the nation's income growth, while the middle class is getting crushed.

We need to fix the economy so it works for working people. Instead Washington is focused not on jobs and growth, but on an extortionist threat concocted by the Tea Party-dominated Republican Congress.

If I had to pick a single word to describe the global economy today, it would be fragile. Policy makers and business leaders have actively built a system that destroys the environment in order to produce profits in the short term — by distributing goods and services across a global supply chain that is designed to minimize costs and maximize financial returns — while relying on structures that are profoundly susceptible to disruption.

This is done by dodging societal responsibility through a shadow network of tax havens (building up debt in the nations of the world and increasing wealth inequality); avoiding environmental protections by choosing to operate in countries where government officials can be bought on the black market (damaging the ecological commons on which all life depends); and creating deregulated zones where worker's rights are minimal or non-existent (sowing the seeds of upheaval by keeping large numbers of people in a state of desperation).

Separated by only a week, both Hostess Brands and the Republican Party raised the white flag of defeat. Hostess' flagship snack Twinkies and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney were, at least for now, finished. According to each, labor disenfranchisement played a role: Hostess blamed a bakers' strike and Republicans pointed to autoworkers' inability to embrace Romney'sLet Detroit Go Bankrupt editorial (NY Times, October 18, 2008. In fact, Hostess current owners, two hedge funds and private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, followed Romney's Bain Capital (and GOP strategy focused on the privileged 1%) of loading up on debt, trampling worker rights, and unselfconsciously rewarding themselves. However, Grand Old Twinkie and Grand Old Party woes run much deeper than irksome workers and an empathetic vacuum.

Tomorrow, November 27th, War Resisters League, a US-based antimilitarist organization founded in 1923, recognizes Asma Mohammed and the Suez Port Workers with its 2012 Peace Award. Exactly one year ago, on November 27th, 2011, Asma Mohammed, customs officer at the Adabiya Port of Suez, Egypt, refused to process a 7-ton shipment of US-made tear gas coming in from the port of Wilmington, North Carolina.

This refusal came in the wake of unprecedented use of tear gas use against protesters around Tahrir Square during "the battle of Mohamed Mahmoud," where dozens died directly from inhalation of the gas.

This year's post-election "lame duck" congressional session presents several disturbing threats—alongside exciting opportunities—for fundamental civil liberties.

Measures extending government authority to conduct dragnet warrantless wiretapping, and arbitrarily detain Americans in domestic military detention without trial, have passed the House and now loom before the Senate. Yet members of Congress willing to do their jobs could support alternative measures to protect privacy and dissent.

Internet freedom means different things to different people. But for most of us it boils down to this: the freedom to read, do and say what we want online — and in private.

This Thursday, that freedom could come under attack. The Senate Judiciary Committee wants to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) — a bill passed in 1986, before most of us had even heard of the Internet — to bring it into the 21st century.