Issues and Analysis

War is a Racket! by The Department of Homeland Inspiration – featuring the Art Ranger and Michael Sheridan

War is a Racket! by The Department of Homeland Inspiration – featuring the Art Ranger and Michael Sheridan

Mar 23, 2023

Art Ranger, along with her colleague Michael Sheridan, review “War is a Racket” by Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler. This highly decorated war hero becomes dogged activist and tours the country giving speeches about how he was in effect, a bully for the corporations, then quit.  Art Ranger and Sheridan share excerpts of the text as well as a piece of their minds. Sonic textures provided by our back up band, The Dirty Pens.

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ON THE MEDIA | Disrupting Journalism: How Platforms Have Upended the News, Columbia Journalism Review

ON THE MEDIA | Disrupting Journalism: How Platforms Have Upended the News, Columbia Journalism Review

Feb 22, 2023

After decades of shrinking revenues, and an increasing expectation among consumers that journalism should be free, the global media industry has reached a crisis point. As legacy news outlets shut down or lay off staff, misinformation and conspiracy theories run rampant, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Trust in our institutions of governance continues to decline, fueling an alarming rise in extremism and political violence across previously stable democracies. In the Global South, the impact of journalism’s decline has been even more striking, with the rise of a new generation of autocrats skilled in manipulating the online conversation to suit their consolidation of power.

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ON THE MEDIA | Meet the Next Generation of Mexican Filmmakers, Global Press Journal

ON THE MEDIA | Meet the Next Generation of Mexican Filmmakers, Global Press Journal

Feb 22, 2023

After the 1994 [Zapatista] uprising, a boom in documentary films focused on indigenous themes and communities — but the overwhelming majority, Sojob says, were made by people from outside the state. Her own interest in storytelling began when, using a camera that her father gave her, she recorded an ongoing land conflict between the people of Chenalhó and the neighboring town of Chalchihuitán. Unless there was some sort of testimony, she realized, no one would know what was happening, “that it was us, ourselves, who had to get out everything that was happening within, from our own context, from our community.”

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ON MIGRATION, ON AFGHANITAN | Biden Admin Plan to Resurrect Asylum Ban Advances Trump Agenda – ACT NOW

ON MIGRATION, ON AFGHANITAN | Biden Admin Plan to Resurrect Asylum Ban Advances Trump Agenda – ACT NOW

Feb 22, 2023

President Biden’s administration has said it will introduce a new rule that would deny many from seeking asylum based on their manner of entry or transit through other countries. The asylum ban is a fundamental departure from how our life-saving asylum system should work and is reminiscent of moments in our nation’s history when we turned away refugees to their death. 

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ON AFGHANISTAN | The Taliban Continue to Tighten Their Grip on Afghan Women and Girls – USIP

ON AFGHANISTAN | The Taliban Continue to Tighten Their Grip on Afghan Women and Girls – USIP

Jan 6, 2023

Since the Taliban’s August 2021 takeover of Afghanistan, they have ratcheted up restrictions on women and girls as the group consolidates power. These restrictions include limitations on employment, education, public interactions and other fundamental rights such as access to justice. These restrictions have only tightened over time with increasingly draconian enforcement — the latest being public floggings that harken back to the Taliban’s 1990s rule.

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