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The Sparks of Rebellion

Chris Hedges Truthdig
We need to be a nationally networked movement of many local, regional and issue-focused groups so we can unite into one mass movement. Research shows that nonviolent mass movements win. Fringe movements fail. By ‘mass’ we mean with an objective that is supported by a large majority and 1 percent to 5 percent of the population actively working for transformation.”

Marian Wright Edelman Marks 40 Years of Advocacy at Children’s Defense Fund

Krissah Thompson The Washingon Post
Forty years after founding the Children’s Defense Fund, which advocates for federal and state resources for children, Edelman is still at work in the fund’s red brick building on E Street NW, displaying at 74 the same passion she had in 1967, when she was a 27-year-old civil rights attorney leading Sen. Robert F. Kennedy through the Mississippi Delta.

Oversight

Matt Wuerker assets.amuniversal

Electrifying Africa–But at What Cost to Africans?

Emira Woods, Janet Redman and Elizabeth Bast Foreign Policy in Focus
Two U.S. initiatives to provide Africans with electricity seem likely to lead to large, climate-polluting projects rather than the locally sourced renewable energy rural Africa needs.

Government Crackdown on Greek Fascists

Helena Smith, Costas Douzinas, Hara Kouki, Antonis Vradis The Guardian
Golden Dawn is both a political party and a gang – and outlawing political parties often proves problematic and ineffective. The law can prohibit but cannot eliminate fascist ideas; these must be confronted politically. Anti-fascism is a political struggle fought daily by citizens, activists, civil society groups and migrant communities. It is a battle for democracy, solidarity and social justice. It cannot be won unless the systemic injustice of austerity is defeated.

Looting the Pension Funds

Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone
All across America, Wall Street is grabbing money meant for public workers. Not only did these middle-class workers already lose huge chunks of retirement money to huckster financiers in the crash, and not only are they now being asked to take the long-term hit for those years of greed and speculative excess, but in many cases they're also being forced to sit by and watch helplessly as Gordon Gekko wanna-be's are put in charge of their retirement savings.

The Impact and Echoes of the Wal-Mart Discrimination Case

Nina Martin ProPublica
The explicit and enduring ramifications of Wal-Mart v. Dukes are still to be determined. Two years later, it’s becoming clear just how much the ruling has reshaped the American legal landscape. But it’s not as though everyone is rolling up their tents and going home.

The Simpsons' Secret Formula: It's Written By Maths Geeks

Simon Singh The Guardian
When one of Britain's best-known science writers went to Los Angeles to meet the show's writers for a new book, he found a team dedicated to inserting gags about complex math problems. And you thought it was just a cartoon…