The Story of Occupy Wall Street, Told by the People

How Occupy Wall Street went from a small group of New York protesters to a broad people's movement.
"People were upset about the economy, people were upset about the foreclosure crisis, people were upset about the bailouts, and about the fact that it looked like elected officials were working for big business rather than for the people who they’re supposed to be working for," says activist Max Rameau from Take Back the Land.  

Resistance & Rage

What are the root causes behind the protests? What do demonstrators hope to accomplish? And will the US administration manage to defuse the rage?

Right to intervene?

As Gaddafi strikes to crush rebel forces in Libya, Al Jazeera looks at the case for and against intervention.

Rising anti-Muslim rhetoric?

Islamophobia in the United States.

Sheikh Hamza Yusuf examines the congressional hearing on the so-called radicalisation of American Muslims.

The Business of News

"The quality of US information has deteriorated" said Hillary Clinton, secretary of state before the Senate foreign relations committee.

The information war, she says, is being won by networks that offer "real news". She praised Al Jazeera and said that it is changing peoples' minds and attitudes.

Cornel West -America's legendary intellectual

'Race' and politics

Gaddafi reaps what he has sown during his four-decade rule: terror, nepotism, tribal politics and abuse of power

In Gaddafi’s Libya, the so-called People’s Congress, universities and other regime-affiliated organisations have had to toe the official line: worship of the "brother leader", read his Green Book, and the brand of Pan-Africanism that no Libyan except Gaddafi and his henchmen believed in.

While visiting the country with a group of students from Exeter University, the hollow slogans of Gaddafi’s "Great Revolution" covered all public space. "Partners not salaried" one says. Another declares "People’s rule" (sultat al-sha’ab). Nothing could be further from the truth.

Gaddafi has ruled the country with the delusion of grandeur of a man who rose to power in a 1969 coup with fairly acceptable political ideals that got corrupted and abandoned. Gaddafi’s much vaunted socialism turned into distribution in favour of the Colonel’s clansmen.

The most serious challenge against Gaddafi’s authority came from the most populous and powerful Libyan tribe, the Warfallah, in October 1993. The rebellion led to kangaroo trials in 1995. Many tribesmen were executed in 1997.

The eastern region, Benghazi, has always been a source of dissidence against the regime. Dozens died in protests in 2006.The map of the current mutiny is both tribal and regional. Two tribes have withdrawn allegiance to Gaddafi's regime, thus settling old scores. Gaddafi is now paying the price for humiliating the Wirfallah tribe, which he has excluded from his favours since the mid-1990s. Similarly, the Tabu tribe in the country's southeast has suffered appalling discrimination.

Riz Khan -Tariq Ali

As social revolutions sweep through the Arab world, how will they affect the role of the US in the region?

US economics: One big Ponzi scheme

Bankers continue to profit as the poor lose their homes and hope.

What is clear is that ripping off the rich is punished far more severely than ripping off the poor.

The speed with which Bernie Madoff was sentenced, preventing him from being tried - a process which, through diligent cross-examination, would have brought us more information on the details of his dirty deals.

Madoff is still not coming clean about the web of alliances he had internationally, as well as in New York. We live in a global economy after all. We now know of Swiss and Austrian connections - but what about Israel, where this ingratiating handler was well known for his connections with Jewish philanthropists and institutions? So far, that story has yet to be told.

At the same time, the people investigating Madoff are making a small fortune. According to the Financial Times: "The army of lawyers and consultants helping to recover funds from Bernard Madoff's $19.6bn fraud stand to earn more than $1.3bn in fees, according to new figures that detail the cost of liquidating the huge Ponzi scheme."

The best reporting on this subject is not in the mainstream press but in a music magazine, Rolling Stone, where Matt Taibbi investigates why the whole of Wall Street is not in jail: "Financial crooks brought down the world’s economy - but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them," he charges.

Andrew Leonard asks in Salon: "Should we trust him? After all, if there is one thing we know about Bernie Madoff, it is that he is one hell of a liar. But as evidence emerges that bank executives were exchanging emails wondering about Madoff’s amazing investment record, the possibility that the banks were purposefully looking the other way is not inconceivable."

Many activists say they want to emulate the Egyptians, but who will organise anything as effective - even in a land that used to be known for people's movements - to raise hell? In Egypt, young people used the internet to organise and mobilise for change. In the US, the internet seems to function more as an escape valve, consuming hours of our time and giving us another way to talk to each other - and ventilate against the government. Social media here seems to be more for socialising.

The government supports internet freedom abroad - but restricts it and spies on it at home. Obama has already supported a law allowing him to shut it down here in a national emergency.

The passivity of the public is one result of the inundation by middle-of-the-road media and effective information deprivation.

As Noam Chomsky puts it: "The population in the United States is angry, frustrated and full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing fine. They're the ones who created the current crisis. They're the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They're coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything's fine - as long as the population is passive."

Social networks, social revolution

Youtube, Facebook and Twitter have become the new weapons of mass mobilisation.

Riz Khan

The Egypt effect
US old clicles and stereotypes need to be deleted.

Al Jazeera

Egypt's remarkable 18 days

Cyberwar -a conflict without footsoldiers, guns, or missiles

Is the US contributing to the militarisation of cyberspace?

Ideas worth spreading

Julian Assange: Why the

world needs WikiLeaks