Every social movement I have been involved with, or covering, develops/invents its own language of liberation, its own alphabet, and its own buzzwords, rhetoric and discourse. Here are some of the key words I heard/retained in covering the Occupy Wall Street movement. I am sure there are many words, phrases,...

New York, December 17 2001: Saturday marked the third month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. It was also Bradley Manning's birthday. It was one of those days that confirmed the validity of the chant: "All Day, All Week, Occupy Wall Street".

Ok, maybe, it wasn't a whole week but Saturday...

Wall Street has become a battleground, defended by a battalion of New York cops, and under surveillance around the clock. There's a war under way after months of protests and assaults by the nonviolent warriors of Occupy Wall Street.

So, who's winning?

On the surface, despite major layoffs...

A week ago, I produced a TV documentary on inside the Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York.

It was already somewhat obsolete by the time it aired.

The Park, once a buzzing center of debate and open-air meetings has gone residential in the sense that virtually...

The tarps are flapping and the tents are not bringing much warmth.

The harsh winds of Winter are lashing the encampment at Zuccotti Park, or as many would prefer. "Liberty Plaza," the symbol of a wannabe revolution against the status quote and powercrats of the American oligarchy.

The hard...

One of the most frequently repeated, recycled and dismissive questions about Occupy Wall Street is its supposed lack of an "agenda."

The "what do you people want" question has featured in media interviews almost to the exclusion of all others.

It's as if the movement won't be taken seriously by...

Who is behind the Wall Street protests?

The Republican minority leader, Eric Cantor, has searched up and down in his usual rigorous manner and found the culprit.

In his knee-jerk view, it's President Obama. His latest crime: encouraging these "mobs:"

In one sentence, he blamed the president who...

There had been rumor on Friday that the band Radiohead would be dropping by the #Occupy Wall Street encampment.

They had just been on the Colbert Report, and their fan base is huge among the very demographic of younger people drawn to the protests now beginning their third week.

And...

ISTANBUL, TURKEY -- Politics increasingly involves the manipulation of symbolic positions designed to create an impression of a tough political stance against Israel and more liberalization at home.

This is certainly the case here in Turkey where official criticisms of Israel serve the purpose, even when those criticism lack...

Journalists are not supposed to have political opinions, and yet we all do. Our "biases" are usually disguised, not blatant or overtly partisan, and can be divined in what stories we cover and how we cover them,

Even 'just the fact's ma'am,' journos for big Media have to decide...

The Capitol Hill battlefield is still for the moment as the Easter holidays approach and the combatants get a break from the heated polemics and overnight bargaining sessions. In a last minute deal, milked by both sides for maximum drama and political advantage, the government will not shut down--at least...

What will it take for our world to recognize the dangers that nuclear scientists and even Albert Einstein were warning about at the "dawn" of the nuclear age?

Amy Goodman reminds us of the prophetic statement by Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett who tried to find words to describe...

Political Leaders and Activists Ask: Has the Future Arrived?

Doha, Qatar: When I arrived in the capital of Qatar, as one of the guest participants in the 6th annual Al Jazeera Forum focused on the Arab world in transition, it was clear the mood had changed.

In years past, the...

Hats off to writer Matt Taibbi for staying on the Wall Street crime beat, asking in his most recent report in Rolling Stone: "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?"

"Financial crooks," he argues, "brought down the world's economy -- but the feds are doing more to protect them...

Thank you Bernie for breaking your silence, even if you are still clinging to that cover-up mode you adopted since your guilty plea took all the blame for your crimes on yourself.

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

Mummies and Dummies: Leave Or Stay, The Egyptian Crisis Will Only Get Deeper With No Quick Fix Likely

A Focus On The Political Battle Conceals An Economic Disaster

By Danny Schechter
Author of The Crime of Our Time

The African journalist Nathanial Manheru chose a quote...

This is an upstairs/downstairs story that takes us from the peak of a western mountaintop for the wealthy to spreading mass despair in the valleys of the Third World poor.

It is about how the solutions for the world financial crisis that the CEOs and Big pols are massaging in...

On the eve of the Chinese President's visit to the United States, and in the midst of intense speculation about his intentions--and ours--I found myself in a dark room at the Anthology Film Archive in the East Village watching a spectacular documentary by Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang called Petition.

It's...

In 1960, I co-founded a student magazine at Cornell University called Dialogue. I was a wannabe journalist, fixated on emulating the courageous media personalities of the times from Edward R. Murrow to a distinctive figure I came to admire at presidential press conferences, a wire service reporter named Helen Thomas....

William Shakespeare put a key question this way: "To be, or not to be?" Today's economists and policy makers pose a different choice: to spend or not to spend.

Governments throughout the west are in a panic as debt mounts and economies contract.

Their solution is cut, cut, cut, in...