Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News
Three years ago this week, Egyptian forces opened fire on a sit-in, killing hundreds of supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi.
At least 817 people died in the Aug. 14, 2013 attack on Rabaah Al-Adawiya Square, where protesters — mostly supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood — had gathered after the coup.
For the survivors and their families, justice remains a far off dream today.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
On Saturday, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America became the ninth Christian denomination in the United States to vote for divestment from Israel.
The resolution, which the ECLA calls a “memorial,” requires the church to end its current investments in companies that support Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and to rigorously screen all future investments as well.
It’s another major victory for the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement, now over a decade old, which faces growing opposition even as it makes further inroads into American society.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
I covered the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia for MintPress News, where I was disturbed to discover that journalists’ cell-phone signals were routinely jammed at protests near the convention’s security fence. The jamming, which was experienced by both mainstream and independent journalists, was especially clear on the night Pres. Barack Obama spoke.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
Lauri Love, an alleged British hacktivist, faces extradition to the U.S. over charges of supporting deceased programmer and activist Aaron Swartz.
In an interview with MintPress News, Naomi Colvin, a U.K.-based campaigner for the Courage Foundation, which supports hacktivist and whistleblower political prisoners, says Love could suffer a similar fate to Swartz if he’s extradited.
“There’s a blatant and rather unpleasant irony in that for allegedly protesting against the prosecutorial conduct and coercive plea bargaining that took place in Aaron Swartz’s case, he’s now facing exactly the same kind of treatment himself,” Colvin told us.
Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News
A lawsuit warns that U.S. aid to Israel violates a law meant to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation, even as the United States prepares to increase the already massive Israeli aid program.
Filed Aug. 8 by Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, or IRMEP, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the suit alleges that U.S. aid to Israel violates two amendments to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, known as the the Symington and Glenn Amendments, which collectively ban support for countries engaged in clandestine nuclear programs.
In the lawsuit, Smith alleges that violating these amendments means that Israel has received approximately $234 billion in illegal aid since the passage of the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976.
Posted in Austin, Journalism, and SXSW
B. Dolan was my favorite discovery of SXSW, an unabashedly political rapper from Rhode Island, and also an anti-corporate activist with Knowmore.org. I caught him during the same show where I saw Wheelchair Sports Camp and I knew we’d have to talk more.
It took until early last month before we finally connected with an interview, and then another month (thanks to the distracting spectacle of the election) before I finally put his words up on my site.
Thanks, B. Dolan, for taking the time to talk, and for your patience in seeing this published!
Kit O’Connell, Approximately 8,000 Words: Talk to me about what it’s like to play a huge commercial event like SXSW, especially the impact it can have good and bad on a community or your career. We had anti-gentrification protests at the event this year, in fact — is this something you take into consideration, as a politically aware musician?
