Howard Zinn wants you to read his book online, but HarperCollins doesn’t

Posted on Sunday, 20 June, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share

Howard Zinn

HIstorian rock star Howard Zinn

People’s historian Howard Zinn has given permission to the folks at History Is A Weapon to put his classic A People’s History Of The United States, online, but that hasn’t stopped HarperCollins from chasing after the website’s developers with threats of a lawsuit for doing so. Last month HIAW published its response to the publishing giant.

While HarperCollins claims both they and the author have not given permission, but the person writing the Cease & Desist order didn’t seem to check her or his facts with Zinn, who had met the HIAW crew in advance and and also gave positive feedback after seeing it online. Download your archived copy here (while supplies last).

The online copy is far from an identical experience to the dead trees version . The site creators scanned the book’s some 650 pages and coded it via hand to correct scanning mistakes, missing some here and there. A lawsuit seems a little ridiculous. The site developers have said they’ll take it offline if and when they ever are asked to do so by Zinn or his family, so HarperCollins could quickly ascertain whether permission was given.

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Cultures of Resistance

Posted on Friday, 18 June, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share

Cultures of Resistance

Cultures of Resistance the film is a feature-length documentary directed by Iara Lee. The film draws connections between people on every continent and highlights the work of artists, musicians, and dancers throughout the world who are re-conceiving resistance as a fundamentally creative act. The Cultures of Resistance website seeks to get audiences involved with the activist groups and campaigns featured in the film.

File this one under Film & Video | Tagged in | Now you say something

The Gaza Flotilla archive

Posted on Friday, 11 June, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share


Delegitimize.com is a new media library project by Nigel Parry that plans to publish a series of both topic-specific and current event-focused archive websites, with the help of the pro-Palestinian community and beyond.

The Gaza Flotilla archive is a freely-available research resource on the events that took place in international waters off the coast of Gaza on 31 May 2010.

File this one under Activism, Do Something | Tagged in , , , | Now you say something

Hindsight is wonderful

Posted on Wednesday, 9 June, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. — Albert Einstein

Image: chemicallygreen.com

“Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct. This inaccurate assessment of reality after it has occurred is also referred to as ‘creeping determinism.’” — Wikidpedia

BP would have done all those things differently if they could turn back time, I’m sure.

Read: British Petroleum has a long record of bold claims and clever slogans.

File this one under Found while Trolling the Web | Tagged in , , | 1 person said something

Shut the hell up Tony Blair

Posted on Wednesday, 9 June, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share

Blair as devil

Tony Blair takes a photo of himself in front of the human rights travesty he helped create in Iraq.

Dear Tony Blair,

Shut the hell up. Here’s what you had to say on the Israeli massacre of nine humanitarian aid activists from Turkey and the illegal boarding and abduction of others in international waters and the theft of their cargo legally bound for Gaza under international law: “I am 100% on Israel’s side.” … “There are no questions at all. There have been rockets fired from Gaza, there are people in Gaza who want to kill innocent Israelis.” (entirely unrelated) … “When it comes to security, I am 100% on Israel’s side.”

Thus, Tony Blair, you are in 0% support of international law, human rights, a peace process, the United Nations or common sense. People need to stop blathering on about Helen Thomas and look at a real hate monger: You.

Quite the envoy of “The Quartet” you are in the name of coming up with some sort of solution to a conflit: A war criminal with a great smile. I don’t get why so many in Labour actually seem to miss you. I’m waiting for someone to actually explain to me what you brought to the table that could be identifiable as “helpful.” You pretty much delivered UK foreign policy to the White House, dragged your country into the most ridiculously insane war in modern history that Iraq is still in ruins from, and you did so knowingly based on false information.

And is now here you are proselytizing for Israel’s right to ethnic cleansing and apartheid and to pop a bullet in the head of anyone it wants to in international waters. You display nothing but disdain for the poeple in the entire region of the Middle East it seems, and you’ve managed to propel this into a profitable business opportunity for yourself. Way to go, you.

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IMEU’s legal background to the illegality of Israel’s attacks on the Humanitarian Aid Flotilla to Gaza

Posted on Thursday, 3 June, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS: Talk or Share

IMEU has a great synopsis with regardss to the various laws that Israel’s attacks on the Free Gaza flotilla are in violation of, as well as the legal status of the Gaza blockade and occupation…

Some of the participants of the humanitarian flotilla. (Maan Images)

Israel exercises “effective control” over Gaza and as such remains an occupying power. Under international law Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal. Its attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla – meant to enforce an illegal blockade – is illegal as well.

1. Why is Israel’s siege of Gaza illegal under international law?

2. Why does the international community continue to consider Israel an occupying power in Gaza?

3. If Israeli claims to have ended its occupation of Gaza were true would the blockade still be illegal?

4. Did Israel have the legal right to prevent the passage of the humanitarian aid flotilla?

5. Did Israel have the right to board the flotilla ships in international waters?

6. Can maritime blockades be imposed in international waters?

7. Did Israel’s actions constitute self-defense?

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