As President-elect Barack Obama focuses on the meltdown of the U.S. economy, another fire is burning: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You may not have heard much lately about the disaster in the Gaza Strip. That silence is intentional: The Israeli government has barred international journalists from entering the occupied territory.
Filed under Weekly Column
Evo Morales knows about “change you can believe in.” He also knows what happens when a powerful elite is forced to make changes it doesn’t want.
Filed under Weekly Column
Alice Walker is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But Monday, I called her to talk about a true story. The Obamas had just visited the White House. The first African-American elected president of the United States had visited his soon-to-be residence, a house built by slaves.
Filed under Weekly Column
Filed under D.N. in the News
Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat writes, “To all those for whom America has represented generations of racial injustice, the election of America’s first Black president marks the beginning of a new era…But unless the inspired millions who brought him to power continue to believe their demands matter and insist on holding him accountable each step of the way, it will be Obama’s corporate and hawkish friends who determine the domestic and foreign policies of the coming administration and our collective future.”
Filed under D.N. in the News
You could almost hear the world’s collective sigh of relief. This year’s U.S. presidential election was a global event in every sense. Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, represents to so many a living bridge—between continents and cultures.
Filed under Weekly Column
The legendary radio broadcaster, writer and oral historian Studs Terkel has died at the age of 96 in Chicago. Over the years Terkel has been a regular guest on Democracy Now!
In 2005, Studs Terkel appeared on Democracy Now! shortly after undergoing open heart surgery. He told Amy Goodman, “My curiosity is what saw me through. What would the world be like, or will there be a world? And so, that’s my epitaph. I have it all set. Curiosity did not kill this cat. And it’s curiosity, I think, that has saved me thus far.”
Filed under DN Archives
Election Day approaches, and with it a test of our election system’s integrity. Who will be allowed to vote; who will be barred? Who will get paper ballots; who will use electronic voting machines? Will polls be open long enough to accommodate what is expected to be a historic turnout?
Filed under Weekly Column
More Blog Posts »
Prior to Hurricane Katrina, over 5,000 families in New Orleans lived in public housing. Today, less than one quarter of them have been able to return home. Last Friday, over two dozen public housing residents and activists took over the HANO offices in New Orleans. They demanded that the government reopen the buildings. [includes rush transcript]
We speak with Tracie Washington, a lifelong New Orleans resident and civil rights attorney who has sued the city over its housing policies. “Somehow we’ve got to get to a critical mass of people where they are all telling the government that it’s wrong, so that the government will stop on its own,” Washington said. “We just can’t keep suing every single day. They’ll wear us out.” [includes rush transcript]
We speak with longtime activist, Curtis Muhammad, a member of the People’s Organizing Committee and a native of New Orleans. On the second anniversary of Katrina, Muhammad wrote a farewell letter to the left and progressive forces in the United States. He is leaving the country and heading south. [includes rush transcript]