MEDIA ROOTS — Reminiscent of the December 2010 act of self-immolation in Tunisia by Mohammed Bouazizi, which helped inspire the globally influential “Arab Spring,” a Chinese man surnamed Wang has undertaken this extreme form of protest at China’s Tiananmen Square on October 21. Whereas, Mr. Bouazizi’s act of protest was widely covered around the world, Mr. Wang’s act of self-immolation … Read More
November 8, 2011 MEDIA ROOTS- As the pro-democracy ‘Arab Spring’ movement spread across North Africa and beyond, Euroamerican imperialists sent a stern message by responding with draconian violence. In Libya, US-NATO forces perpetrated crimes against humanity under the pretext of combating alleged crimes against humanity. President Obama gloated as NATO advanced in Libya, then cheered the brutal assassination of Gaddafi, … Read More
MEDIA ROOTS— As people in the U.S. and abroad endeavour to exercise their rights and civil liberties, such as the right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, the state and its police forces continue finding methods to repress such civic activity. An important component of social control and repression of dissent has been the curtailment of telecommunications. Earlier this … Read More
MEDIA ROOTS- Several research studies have studied job discrimination by sending out resumes with different identifying features and tracking the response rates. For instance, one study conducted by researchers at MIT and University of Chicago sent out thousands of resumes that were identical except for the name of the applicant: in one version, the applicants name was stereotypically “Black” (e.g., … Read More
MEDIA ROOTS- The news that King Abdullah would permit women to vote and run in local elections in 2015 was met with the predictable array of responses in the corporate media. Very little was said about American-Saudi relations going back more than half a century. Unmentioned were the anti-egalitarian campaigns that the plutocrats of both societies colluded on, to squash any … Read More
