Today's Liberal News

“We Are the 99%”: 15 Years Later, Occupy Wall Street’s Impact Is Still Being Felt

Fifteen years ago this week, thousands of activists marched on the Financial District in New York City. They formed the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park, launching a movement focused on economic inequality that spread across the nation and globe under the slogan, “We are the 99%.” Protesters would go on to sleep in Zuccotti Park for nearly two months before police raided the encampment.

“Inequality Emergency”: Ahead of U.N. General Assembly, Oxfam Urges Action on Climate, AI & Gaza

As world leaders prepare to head to New York for the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week, Democracy Now! speaks with Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International. “We live in a very different world from 1945,” when the U.N. was formed, says Behar. “You cannot continue with the veto power.” And with António Guterres soon stepping down, Behar stresses that the United Nations’ next secretary-general must be a woman — “a fundamental shift we need to make.

“Call It Evil”: Philosopher Susan Neiman on Why Moral Clarity Matters in the Trump Era

We speak with moral philosopher Susan Neiman, author of the new book Call It Evil: Understanding the Trump Era. Neiman argues that evil — far from being an outdated religious concept — is a vital way to understand how injustice works in the world. The Trump administration’s abusive policies have been aided by a general reluctance to call them out as evil, part of how people are “brainwashed … by the idea that morality is for losers, suckers, fools,” she says.

Trump’s Attacks on the Media Are Self-Defeating

Donald Trump is presiding over a failing presidency and lashing out at the news media—most recently by banning CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House. There might seem to be a connection between these two things, but the causal link is not that Trump is punishing the press because he is failing; rather, it’s the opposite. His inability to govern is in part a consequence of his hatred for the news media.

Trump’s Monumental Obsession

Donald Trump is facing multiple challenges. The United States is losing to one of its worst enemies in a war that has left the American economy mired in the sludge of growing inflation and rising energy prices. His popularity is now hovering around second-term George W. Bush levels, and may even be headed for end-stage Richard Nixon numbers. His party faces the prospect of a crushing defeat in midterm elections that are only six weeks away. (In some places, early voting has already begun.

Pinballing

I was pinballing/
slamming the back glass/
hitting every outlane/
triggering a ramp shot/
spinning red after years/
of running/nights/
of crashing/I wanted power over something/
anything/thought:
what would it look like/
the glistening body/cut open/
the jewels of itself/turning?
The back glass of the body/
breached? Would I come
alive in the cut/you could say seeing
my inside body/its wires &
circuits/my spiky wrist/you could say
gleeful at the sight?

What Is Humanity’s Place in the Cosmos?

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For all of history, humans have been fascinated by the heavens above us. We’ve used the stars to navigate Earth, to predict the future, and to understand our place in the larger scheme of things. Changes in our view of the cosmos—from the Copernican revolution that “uncentered” the Earth to the discovery of the Big Bang and the recognition that the universe is expanding—have invariably changed our view of ourselves.

50 Songs That Explain America

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I wouldn’t be here—in America, or inside my nervous system as it’s currently constituted—without American music.
That’s no exaggeration. As a metalheaded, punk-rock-obsessed, hip-hop-curious English teenager, I projected my mind toward America. The music summoned me: I couldn’t wait to be around it.