The Free

Pussy Riot and Madonna, branded sluts and therefore liars!

Do women who have had sex always tell lies? (Pussy Riot and Madonna)

Every now and again the rhetoric of patriarchal power reveals itself in a specially pernicious way .

Last week in Moscow, Madonna lent her voice to the growing international condemnation of the trial of members of the feminist performance art group, Pussy Riot.

During a concert she stripped off her shirt to reveal the group’s name emblazoned on her back, before donning a version of their trademark balaclava for a slow rendition of Like A Virgin. Continue reading “Pussy Riot and Madonna, branded sluts and therefore liars!”

Trapwire is watching us… Wikileaks vs. the CIA.. ‘Smash A Cam Saturday’

Wikileaks has exposed Trapwire, which is a giant Global snooping system set up in 2004 by ex CIA agents and linked to millions of cameras and supercomputers.

In theory Trapwire is to detect potential terrorists, by spotting them doing the planning, thus cashing in on the multi billion antiterrorist budget.

In practive terrorists are rarer than dodos..If, like the NYT says, TrapWire is “Counter-Terrorism” software, how do we explain THIS 2nd August 2010 internal Stratfor email, which states, “they (San Francisco) need something like TrapWire more for threats from activists than from terror threats. Both are useful, but activists are ever-present around here.” Continue reading “Trapwire is watching us… Wikileaks vs. the CIA.. ‘Smash A Cam Saturday’”

Manning was tortured..Dismiss the charges NOW

Accused: the men who tortured Bradley Manning… dismissal of charges document here in full

Posted by anonymous ⋅

“I conclude that the 11 months under conditions of solitary confinement (regardless of the name given to his regime by the prison authorities) constitutes at a minimum cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in violation of article 16 of the convention against torture,” Juan Mendez, UN special rapporteur on torture. Continue reading “Manning was tortured..Dismiss the charges NOW”

permaculture.. Farming without water

Millions Against Monsanto: The Food Fight of Our Lives

By Brie Mazurek The Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture

Farmer David Little of Little Organic Farmgrows potatoes without irrigation in a dry part of California.This week, as the nation grapples with the worst drought in decades, the USDA added more than 218 counties to its list of natural disaster areas, bringing the total to 1,584 — more than half of all U.S. counties. Farmers in the Midwest and Great Plains have been the hardest hit, but the drought is a growing reality for farmers across the country, including California. While the secretary of agriculture won’t comment on the drought’s link to climate change, it’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and as global warming unfolds, knowledge of dryland agriculturewill become increasingly valuable.David Little of Little Organic Farm has had to adapt to water scarcity in California’s Marin and Sonoma counties, where most farmers and ranchers rely on their own reservoirs, wells, and springs, making them particularly vulnerable in years with light rainfall. Through a technique known as dry farming, Little’s potatoes and squash receive no irrigation, getting all of their water from the soil. Continue reading

Peru: The Battle for Pachamama

More protests over mining, water

by WW4 More than 500 residents in the campesino community of Tumpa in Yungay province of Peru’s central Andean region of Áncash, began blocking roads leading to the local operations of the Mina California company Aug. 6, declaring an open-ended paro (civil strike) to demand a halt to the mine’s pollution of local waters.

The mine is located near Nevado Huascarán, Peru’s highest mountain, and the national park of the same name, which forms the headwaters of several of Peru’s major rivers. (Servindi, Aug. 6) Continue reading

1000’s of Anarchists in Celebration

Global anarchists return to Swiss birthplace of Anarchist International

by WW4. Anarchists from all over the world gathered Aug. 8-12 in the town of Saint-Imier in the Jura region of Switzerland to mark the 140th anniversary of a congress which saw the anarchists break with the workers’ movement dominated by Karl Marx. The International Anarchism Gathering called for public protests and strikes to oppose austerity measures imposed in response to the European debt crisis. “Capitalism goes from crisis to crisis, so this is an opportunity for us,” said Aristides Pedraza, one of the event organizers. Continue reading “1000’s of Anarchists in Celebration”