We pay tribute to the late historian, writer and activist Howard Zinn who died suddenly on Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of 87. Howard Zinn’s classic work A People’s History of the United States changed the way we look at history in America. …
 http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/01/28
 To see an animation of Howard Zinn’s People’s History [...]

Nonviolent Resistance Is the Most Powerful Tactic Against Oppressive Regimes
On the outskirts of a desert town in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara, about a dozen young activists are gathered. They are involved in their country’s long struggle for freedom. A group of foreigners—veterans of protracted resistance movements—is conducting a training session in the optimal [...]

But, yet, the mass movement that we were a part of ten years ago really isn’t present in the streets. And I think a lot of that has to do with, perhaps, the “Obama effect” in the United States where everyone is still in this waiting pattern, hoping that he’s going to save the day.

By Chalmers Johnson
However ambitious United States President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous [...]

The global reach of the US military today is unprecedented and unparalleled. Officially, more than 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are massed in approximately 900 military facilities in 46 countries and territories (the unofficial figure is far greater). The US military owns or rents 795,000 acres of land, with 26,000 buildings and structures, valued at $146bn (£89bn). The bases bristle with an inventory of weapons whose worth is measured in the trillions and whose killing power could wipe out all life on earth several times over.

“War is peace” was one of the memorable slogans on the facade of the Ministry of Truth, Minitrue in “Newspeak,” the language invented by George Orwell in 1948 for his dystopian novel 1984. Some 60 years later, a quarter-century after Orwell’s imagined future bit the dust, the phrase is, in a number of ways, eerily [...]

by Norman Solomon
8 June 2009
It takes at least tacit faith in massive violence to believe that after three decades of horrendous violence in Afghanistan, upping the violence there will improve the situation.
Despite the pronouncements from high Washington places that the problems of Afghanistan can’t be solved by military means, 90 percent of the spending [...]

Alternatives to Empire: Constructing Alternatives to Empire from digital birdy video on Vimeo.
Constructing Alternatives to Empire is Part Four of a four part series of interviews conducted by Larry Marshall with Professor Joseph Camilleri and Reverend David Pargeter, two of the founders of The Alternatives to Empire Project.

Alternatives to Empire: Illusions of Empire from digital birdy video on Vimeo.
Illusions of Empire is Part Three in a four part series of interviews conducted by Larry Marshall with Professor Joseph Camilleri and Reverend David Pargeter, two of the founders of The Alternatives to Empire Project.

Alternatives to Empire: The Decline of the American Empire from digital birdy video on Vimeo
The Decline of the American Empire is Part One of a four part series of interviews conducted by Larry Marshall with Professor Joseph Camilleri and Reverend David Pargeter, two of the founders of The Alternatives to Empire Project.