Dissent

(By Jon Queally) Nobel laureate says ‘people of conscience’ must break ties with oil and gas companies that are destroying planet’s future. Archbishop of South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu is saying their is no longer any excuse for not doing everything humanly possible to fight climate change and called on Thursday […]

Constitution

America’s Post-9/11 Dystopia: No-Fly Lists, Secret Gov’t Databases and Guilty even if Proven Innocent

Juan Cole

(By Peter van Buren) Rahinah Ibrahim is a slight Malaysian woman who attended Stanford University on a U.S. student visa, majoring in architecture. She was not a political person. Despite this, as part of a post-9/11 sweep directed against Muslims, she was investigated by the FBI. In 2004, while she was still in the U.S. […]

Dissent

Jimmy Carter: I send Landmail because of NSA Surveillance “Abuse”

Juan Cole

NBC’s Meet the Press interviewed former president Jimmy Carter on Sunday, and he complained that the National Security Agency probably has him under electronic surveillance. He said that when he communicates with a foreign head of state, he sends an old-fashioned landmail letter! If a distinguished former president feels this way, imagine ordinary citizens. Related […]

Dissent

Top attempts by Dictators to Shut down Twitter in Mideast (including Turkey’s PM Erdogan)

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Trying to close down social media such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube has been a desperate ploy of dictatorial regimes throughout the world. It doesn’t work very well, since typically users find workarounds. But what is interesting is why authoritarian regimes make the attempt in the first place. At midnight last night, […]

Dissent

Has Consumerism forever Killed the American Revolutionary Spirit?

contributors

(By Lewis Lapham) [This essay will appear in “Revolution,” the Spring 2014 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly. This slightly adapted version is posted at TomDispatch.com with the kind permission of that magazine.] In case of rain, the revolution will take place in the hall.— Erwin Chargaff For the last several years, the word “revolution” has been hanging […]

Bashar al-Assad

Four Reasons Syria Refugees are a Bigger Story than Malaysian Air MH 370

Juan Cole

It is a tragedy that the 239 passengers on Malaysian Air MH 370 never made it to Beijing, and appear to have been the victims of a hijacking that went horribly wrong. But the hours and hours of US cable television speculation about the fate of the flight during the past seven days are a […]

Dissent

Censorship: Turkish PM, President tangle over Bruited ban on Facebook, Youtube

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) President Abdullah Gul has rejected a suggestion by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan that Turkey might ban Facebook and Twitter. Nearly half of Turkey’s 77 million people use Facebook at least once a month and the country ranks 15th in the world for Facebook use. Turkey had banned Youtube 2008-2010. The good news […]

Barack Obama

Least Transparent Administration Ever: A New Front in Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

contributors

(By Peter Van Buren) The Obama administration has just opened a new front in its ongoing war on whistleblowers. It’s taking its case against one man, former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Air Marshal Robert MacLean, all the way to the Supreme Court. So hold on, because we’re going back down the rabbit hole with the Most […]

Dissent

Paranoia strikes Deep: Russian Media Propaganda Feeds Ukraine Crisis

contributors

(By Dan Peleschuk) Russian TV beats war drum on home front (via GlobalPost) MOSCOW, Russia — Ukraine’s new authorities are an ultranationalist, neo-fascist gang who’ve seized power with covert Western support and are bent on marauding Russian-speaking southeastern Ukraine and forcing its peaceful citizens into submission… ——– Related video: Euronews: “Sergei Lavrov defends Russia’s […]