After spending over a year in post-earthquake Haiti, writing about the abysmal tent camp living conditions and the often violent evictions of internally displaced quake victims, I found myself at a planning meeting in New York for Occupy Wall Street in Tompkins Square Park the day before the 10th anniversary […]
Asks Dr Michael Reiss of fullreservebanking.com and author of ‘What Went Wrong With Economics’. Why are politicians so frightened to let any major banks go under? Is there a difference between a bank failure and the failure of any other kind of business? The answer is yes, and the reason […]
In an era of austerity it takes a far-sighted and responsible government to invest in green energy. Despite the rhetoric, however, the ‘greenest government ever’ is doing quite the opposite. Not only is it dragging its feet on climate action, it is also squandering taxpayers’ money to keep alive a […]
In the mid 19th century, Henry Thoreau coined the term ‘civil disobedience’ when fighting against the American government’s state poll tax – the money from which would be used to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. He broadly used this concept to denote individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition […]
A short walk away from St Paul’s Cathedral, from the stained glass bank buildings and the streets where London’s Occupy movement made its mark, there’s another temple. Just across the river that divides our city stands the Tate Modern, a veritable place of worship, where the faithful gather to revere […]
Now that the dust has settled upon the latest round of legal action between Occupy and those who seek to evict them from the site outside St Paul’s Cathedral, it is, perhaps, appropriate to take a moment in time to reflect upon the present position of the law and how […]
Law is like life. It begins small and simple and then evolves. The Darwinian struggles to occupy new existential spaces and overcome challenges create new species. Much like ecosystems, young jurisdictions enjoy relatively simple relationships between their constituent parts but more established legal systems are populated with so many sets […]
The Occupy movement seemed to spring out of nowhere in the autumn of last year. First we saw the Occupy Wall Street camp in New York’s Zuccotti Park – which was swiftly renamed Liberty Square in homage to Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Here in Britain, we saw a series of Occupy […]
Women’s rights have come a long way since the first International Women’s Day in 1900. Talks of gender equality have come to dominate the agenda of politicians of all credos leaving many wondering if there is still a need for a feminist struggle – especially within Western democratic societies. On […]
The Media Lens media analysis service was established in 2001 by political writers David Cromwell and David Edwards. The service aims to raise awareness of the systemic failure of the corporate media to report the world honestly and accurately, and to increase rational awareness, critical thought and compassion. Its output includes news analyses in […]