Dear supporter, Support is growing for the World Socialist Web Site’s upcoming livestream event, “Organizing Resistance to Internet Censorship” featuring David North and Chris Hedges, to be held Tuesday, January 16 at 7 PM EST ( Full Time Zone Conversions). Award-winning Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger threw his supportbehind the meeting, writing: “As a journalist and filmmaker who has long navigated the mainstream, I offer my support to this important discussion between Chris Hedges and David North.” Pilger called the WSWS, Wikileaks, Counterpunch, and other left-wing news sources “crucial,” and said “the filtering and limiting of Google searches of these sites is rank censorship…The matter is urgent; voices must be raised! I urge my colleagues to break their silence.” |
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Attendees from six continents and dozens of countries have signed-up for this world event even as Google, Facebook, and other platforms continue to censor articles from the WSWS.
Keep our momentum going! Share this new video to social media and build awareness of the January 16 event! |
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By Andre Damon
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday that the world’s largest social network is initiating major changes aimed at deprioritizing news and political content on individual users’ news feeds in favor of “personal moments.” The change is the most significant effort to date to censor online information.
Facebook is currently a major source of news for hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. The number of global Facebook users has increased from 100 million in 2008 to more than 2 billion. According to a Pew Research poll last November, 45 percent of Americans use Facebook for news content, more than any other social media platform. It has become a significant mechanism for the organization of protests and the spread of information outside of the control of the major media conglomerates. It is this that Facebook, working closely with the major capitalist states, wants to end.
Under these conditions the online webinar, “Organizing resistance to Internet censorship,” featuring WSWS Chairperson David North and journalist Chris Hedges, is extraordinarily timely. The live videostream will be broadcast on Tuesday, January 16, from 7:00 to 8:30 pm Eastern Standard Time. We call on all our readers to register today at endcensorship.org and make plans to participate in this critical international event. Read more » |
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Death and destruction in Puerto Rico
On-the-spot interviews from Caguas, Puerto Rico, where more than 100 days after Hurrican Maria residents lack access to electricity and water, leading to the death of a dialysis patient. Watch the Video » |
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 Teacher’s arrest in Louisiana: Another day, another outrage
By Jerry White
What could be more “American” than a local school board town hall meeting? The type of scene portrayed in a Norman Rockwell painting—democracy in action, an opportunity for ordinary citizens to air their complaints and have their voices heard, the embodiment of “civic duty” and accountability. In today’s America, however, Rockwell, witnessing the fate of Louisiana teacher Deyshia Hargrave, might be driven to adopt more the style of Francisco Goya or Hieronymus Bosch.
At a school board meeting held this past Monday, the courageous teacher at Rene A. Rost Middle School in southern Louisiana’s Vermilion Parish had the temerity to question, with calm but determined insistence, why the local school board had voted to give the district’s superintendent, Jerome Puyau, a $38,000 raise on top of his $110,000 salary.
Hargrave, an English language arts instructor who was named the 2015-16 teacher of the year at her middle school, noted that the decision was a “slap in the face to the teachers, the cafeteria workers and any support staff” who are “not getting a dime.” Class sizes in the district have jumped from 21 to 29 students in recent years, she noted, while teachers have not received a pay raise in a decade. Read more » |
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Documentarian John Pilger issues statement of support for January 16 webinar, “Organizing resistance to Internet censorship”
The following statement was sent by award-winning Australian journalist and documentarian John Pilger in support of the upcoming webinar, “Organizing resistance to Internet censorship: An online discussion with Chris Hedges and David North.” Pilger’s documentaries include The Quiet Mutiny (1970), Year Zero (1979), Utopia (2013) and, most recently, The Coming War on China (2016), on US aggression in Asia.
The webinar featuring Hedges and North will be held Tuesday, January 16, at 7:00 p.m. EST. For more information and to register, click here.
As a journalist and filmmaker who has long navigated the mainstream, I offer my support to this important discussion between Chris Hedges and David North.
Something has changed. Although the media was always a loose extension of capital power, it is now almost fully integrated. Dissent once tolerated in the mainstream has regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves toward a form of corporate dictatorship. This is an historic shift, with journalists policing the perimeters of the new order: witness the anti-Russia hysteria and the #MeToo witch-hunts, especially in liberal newspapers such as the Guardian and the New York Times. With independent journalists ejected from the mainstream, the world wide web remains the vital source of serious disclosure and evidence-based analysis: true journalism. Read more » |
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| Trump’s racist comments trigger international condemnation
By James Cogan
The already battered international standing of the US government has been dealt a further blow by the revelation that President Trump labeled some of the most oppressed and impoverished nations as “shithole countries.” Disgust and anger over the openly racist comments the US president made at a meeting with congressional leaders on Thursday have only been intensified by Trump’s belated and obviously dishonest attempts to deny that he said what has been reported by multiple sources, including some who were at the meeting.
The remarks were made at a White House conference with Democratic and Republican lawmakers on immigration policy. In response to a discussion on “temporary protected status,” which allows people from countries ravaged by natural disasters or war, such as Haiti and El Salvador, to live and work in the US, Trump said: “What do we want Haitians here for? Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shithole countries? We should have more people from places like Norway.”
Trump’s rant was leaked to the Washington Post and made public. International denunciations soon followed. Read more » |
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