Tom Hayden's Blog, page 48

Assange Seeks Asylum in Ecuador

In what might escalate into a major setback for the US government, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has taken refuge in the Ecuadoran embassy in London and is seeking political asylum in that Latin American country.

From Jim Shultz of the Democracy Center, in Rio

Sadly you aren't missing much in Rio. Forty miles separate the social movement venue and the power venue and as a result the social venue seems like a bit of a holding tank for the self-marginalized. I don't think the action is at these events anyway; it is in national and local campaigns.

Obama Embraces the Dreamers

Like the student sit-ins and Freedom Rides of 1960-61, wave after wave of immigrant students succeeded Friday in persuading an African American president, born during the high tide of those earlier student movements, to recognize their quest for dreams instead of deportations.

What the Port Huron Statement still has to say, 50 years on

The hopes of Students for a Democratic Society stalled as the 1960s soured. But our ethos of participatory democracy survives.

The Official Responsibility for Soldier Suicides

In 2009 it was first reported that more American soldiers were committing suicide than civilians for the first time in decades. In February 2010, the Peace and Justice Resource Center reported that suicides among American troops had reached 1,000 at a rate greater than fatalities in either the Iraq or Afghanistan Wars. Once again this week, the Pentagon acknowledged an Associated Press report that suicides were at record levels, 18 per day, and an 18 percent increase in active-duty suicides over last year. Those should have been warnings enough.

City Project Organizes, Litigates for Environmental Justice

The LA-based City Project, led by civil rights attorney Robert Garcia, is making national inroads in its efforts to confront racial disparities in public access to parks, services, healthy food and quality schools. Its accomplishments have drawn the attention of the Obama administration’s environmental agencies, including EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

Mexican Presidential Candidates Woo Student Movement, U.S. Official Says Drug War Will Continue Regardless of Outcome

Mexican public opinion has turned sharply against the US–supported drug war, which has left over 50,000 dead, forcing Mexico’s presidential candidates to disavow the militarized approach in favor of less violent alternatives. US officials are deeply concerned at the prospect of ending or even slowing the drug war, and say privately that the leading candidate, Enrique Pena Nieto of PRI, does not mean his own sound bites.

Woodward-Bernstein: Watergate was About Vietnam and the Anti-War Movement

In the permanent struggle over memory, the mainstream narration about Watergate is that it was about an ego-driven lust for power, and contained by the checks-and-balances of our democracy. Nothing could be farther from the truth, according to a new reflection by Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward on the fortieth anniversary of the event that led to Richard Nixon’s demise.

The Future of Julian Assange

Britain’s Supreme Court will soon decide whether the latest appeal by the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, has merit. If so, more legal wrangling lies ahead. If not, Assange has one last appeal to the European Court on Human Rights. Failing there, he will be extradited to Sweden. Or he could be snatched at any minute for extradition to the United States.

Loni Hancock: What to Do About Dirty Money?

A correspondence between Tom Hayden and Senator Loni Hancock (D-CA9).