The World Cup is getting lots of coverage these days. But we’re not hearing enough about the demonstrations taking place in South Africa.

There have been a “series of  strikes at almost half of the World Cup stadiums as guards are being paid less than one tenth of what they were promised when they were employed,” reports AllAfrica.com. Seems like a newsworthy event, but the camera lens is focused on the soccer stars, not the working stiffs.

Yesterday during a sports panel hosted by journalists Davey D, Dave Zirin, and artist Favianna Rodriguez, longtime activist Trevor Ngwane joined us live via Skype from South Africa. It was so cool.

Ngwane talked about the “FIFA mafia” and said he “wouldn’t wish the World Cup on any country.”

The Anti-Privatisation Forum and other groups have been protesting throughout the games.

“The government has the wrong priorities,” said Ngwane. “The government shouldn’t prioritize mega-sports and mega-sports stars.”

Ngwane listed what the South African government should be prioritizing: housing, education, health care; youth unemployment is above 80% he said.

He added that there needs to be a more sustainable basis for unity for the poor besides the World Cup.

More marches are planned for next week in J-burg. Now if we could only get some coverage of that.

Speaking of television coverage, Dave Zirin mentioned a really shocking and sad statistic: only 40,000 Africans outside of the host country are watching the World Cup on TV. The TV rights are too expensive. There are probably more Americans watching the World Cup in New York City than in Africa (outside of South Africa).

And that’s one of the problems with these big games, be it World Cup or Olympics. Corporate rights get prioritized over human rights.

The U.S. Social Forum kicked off Tuesday, June 22, in Detroit. The social forum is a gathering of activists from around the country. It’s a chance to catch up, network, and organize under the banner of “another world is possible.” Organizers are expecting as many as 20,000 people to participate.

I tried to register today several times but the lines were incredibly long. At one point registration was closed so folks could participate in the opening march.

Why Detroit? It’s easy to think Detroit as a city of decay, poverty, and violence. But there is so much more to the city.

To give but one example, Detroit has a vibrant community garden scene. Today I went to a workshop about the Greening of Detroit.

Detroit’s population has shrunk to about a quarter of what it was forty or fifty years ago, leaving lots of open green space. But neighborhood groups are transforming these vacant lots into community gardens.

The Detroit Garden Resource Program Collaborative is the hub of this effort. In 2003, four organizations–the Greening of Detroit, Detroit Agriculture Network, EarthWorks Urban Farm/Capuchin Soup Kitchen, and Michigan State University–began working together to provide support for the city’s urban gardeners.

Seven years ago there were 8o community gardens, consisting of neighborhood gardens, backyard patches, and school gardens. By 2009, there were 800 community gardens. This year there are 1200, including some urban farms.

Education, nutrition information, shared tools, workshops (on topics ranging from how to build hoop houses to composting lessons) are some of the things the garden resource program excels at.

A few years ago, gardeners decided to sell the food they produced, starting at local farmers markets. In the first year, they made just under $1000. This year, they expect to rake in between $60,000–$80,000.

And they’ve branched out beyond farmers markets. They’ve created relationships with Detroit restaurants to sell locally produced veggies and fruits.

Ultimately, these community gardens are a way to do community organizing. And that’s what makes it so inspiring–and necessary. And community organizing is at the heart of the US Social Forum.

It’s hard to imagine that 40 years ago, 20 million people, or 10% of the U.S. population, participated in Earth Day.

Earth Day was the brainchild of Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.

On April 20 and 21, the UW-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies held a conference entitled “Earth Day at Forty: Valuing Wisconsin’s Environmental Traditions, Past, Present and Future.”

The conference was terrific and included a number of fantastic speakers, including author Margaret Atwood and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Atwood talked about the need for power to be decentralized, and proposed a new principle for the environmental justice movement: Eco-Mercy. Rather than haggling over injustice, let’s focus on compassion.

Kennedy acted as the provocateur, saying “the best thing for the environment is free market capitalism.” He said what we have now is “corporate crony capitalism.” It’s time to end all the subsidies—hidden and obvious ones—of the carbon-based economy. De-carbonization will lead to prosperity, he said.

Tia Nelson, the Senator’s daughter, spoke tenderly about her “Papa” and how he never would’ve imagined that his legacy would be forty years of environmental activism.

Senator Nelson wrote about the degradation of our planet in the pages of The Progressive. In 1967, he wrote a piece for us entitled, “The National Pollution Scandal.”

“The natural environment of America—the woods and waters and wildlife, the clear air and blue sky, the fertile soil and the scenic landscape—is threatened with destruction,” Senator Nelson wrote. He outlined “this new American tragedy,” and noted, “It must be attacked for what it is: a sinister byproduct of the prosperous, urbanized, industrialized world in which we live.”

In November 1969, he wrote a piece for The Progressive called, “Our Polluted Planet.”

“I am convinced that all that is needed now is the trigger to activate the overwhelming insistence of the new generation on environmental quality,” he predicted. “It is the young who can begin to stem the tide of disaster. To marshal such an effort, I am proposing a National Teach-In on the Crisis of the Environment to be held next spring on every university campus across the nation. The crisis is so imminent, in my opinion, that every university should set aside one day in the school year—the same day across the nation—for the Teach-In.”

Tia Nelson spoke about Gaylord’s numerous attempts to get Congress and Presidents to take seriously the destruction of our landscapes. The original Earth Day would not have happened without the Senator’s willingness to fail over and over again. Earth Day, she said, spoke to the power of an individual to make change.

But individual acts are not enough. As Kennedy noted, where there’s environmental destruction, there’s also a destruction of democracy. Elected officials need to be visionaries like Gaylord Nelson, and create policies that will end pollution-based prosperity.

The Tea Partiers held a Tax Day demo at the Wisconsin state capital today. The local organizers said the crowd totaled 12,000. Seemed like a stretch. Much closer to 3000.

Tommy Thompson took the stage late in the rally. His face was as red as his tie. He was so fired up, I was worried he’d have a heart attack and we would see “ObamaCare” in action.

Rumors have been flying about the possibility of Tommy running against Russ Feingold this year. Much to the dismay of the people who chanted “Run, Tommy, Run,” he has decided not to. Like just about everyone else who spoke, he had a very pro-God ending.

I did speak to Terrence Wall, a local Madison developer, who is running against Feingold. He criticized Feingold, saying he’s been in office since 1982 and is now a career politician. “He hasn’t accomplished anything,” said Wall.

Wall said that his top priority is to get jobs started and rebuild confidence in the state, and “get government out of the way.”

I asked him, given what he said about the government being in the way, where he came down on civil liberties. Would he have voted for the Patriot Act? (Feingold was the only Senator to vote against it.)

Wall said he would have voted for the Patriot Act. It’s about “striking a balance” between security and rights. “I’m for civil liberties,” he said. “And they’re going after terrorists; they aren’t going after you and me.”

Well what about the No Fly Lists? “I had a friend who was on one of the those by mistake.”

Wall should be an easy target for Dems. Wall says he’s against taxes, and oh, is he ever. According to the Capital Times, “Wall has not paid personal state income taxes in nine of the past 10 years, according to the state Department of Revenue. That’s quite remarkable, as Wall is a son of privilege who has always enjoyed great wealth and whose real estate empire has, according to his own campaign spokesman, incurred tens of millions of dollars in tax obligations over the past five years.”

The Capital Times continues: “Let’s consider Feingold’s record. According to Department of Revenue figures, the senator paid net taxes between $6,000 and $9,400 each year from 1999 to 2008. So how come Russ Feingold pays more net taxes than Terrence Wall? That’s easy. Feingold’s one of the great mass of Americans who work hard, pay their taxes and try to abide by the rules. Wall’s one of the elite few who think that their money and position give them the privilege to write a special set of rules for themselves. Feingold thinks everyone should pay their fair share. Wall thinks that working Americans should pay their fair share — and his.”

Top Ten Signs at the Mad Tea Party:

“One Nation Under God, not Obama”
“Your dog has birth papers Do You Mr. President”
“First they ignore you . . . Then they laugh at you . . .then they try to fight you . . . then you win. –Gandhi”
“Cap your income and Trade your freedom”
“Chris Matthews needs a diaper change”
“Teach a man to fish and you lose a Democrat voter”
“On the eighth day, God created capitalism”
“Free markets not Free loaders”
“I will not grab my ankles”
“Social Justice sucks if you work hard”

There were some non-Tea Party people around too. A group of young women with glasses and short hair had signs that read “Giving tea a bad name.”

But the most ironic moment was hearing the organizers blaring Rage Against the Machine. Huh?

Every year Senator Russ Feingold holds listening sessions in all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Under dreary midwinter skies, two hundred people crowded into the Mazomanie Community Center in rural Dane County, Wisconsin, on February 22 to chat with their junior senator.

I caught up with Feingold before the session started. (In fact, I may have been the only member of the press there until Molly Stentz, news director at WORT-FM, Madison’s community radio station, showed up.)

The Progressive: What are you hearing at your other listening sessions?

Feingold: Most of the comments at 27 listening sessions already this year have been about health care, but not exclusively. People are asking about cap and trade, about government spending, but health care is still the biggest.

The Progressive: What’s your opinion on the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United case?

Feingold: Terrible decision. One of the most lawless decisions in the history of this country and of the Supreme Court. It throws open our political process to huge corporations including foreign money. Unfortunately the only thing that basically is still standing is the McCain-Feingold bill that I wrote. But that’s not enough. That just has to do with direct contributions. This creates a massive transfer of power to large corporations. It’s a real threat to our democracy. In fact, I am noticing that people all across the political spectrum, other than apparently the Republican Party, agree that it’s a bad decision.

The Progressive: How will this affect your re-election campaign?

Feingold: I’m not concerned about that. I’ve been outspent every single time. That’s not the issue. The issue is the taking away of democracy from the average citizen.

The Progressive: What do you think of the Move to Amend group, the people who are organizing to change the Constitution to address issue of campaign contributions?

Feingold: I don’t think the way to do it is by amending the Bill of Rights. I oppose that and I think that’s unwise but I certainly understand the sentiment. The best thing to do is to get new justices, different justices, who will do the right thing. They completely ignored the judgment of the Supreme Court from two years ago. So, really, this is a lawless thing by people who pledged to follow precedent. I also am open to legislative changes that will help. But in the end we need these decisions reversed back again.

The Progressive: When will the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq end?

Feingold: Iraq is under way; it’s not as fast as I’d like, but it’s starting. And Afghanistan I’m very worried about. I think we’re moving in the wrong direction. I’m very concerned about that and we need to push hard against the [Obama] Administration on that particular thing.

It’s too bad that no television crews were around to capture this animated town hall. It was an older crowd, though some young women wearing bright pink T-shirts stood out in the back. Mazomanie lies about 45 minutes northwest of Madison, but that didn’t stop a contingent of AARP folks from the state’s capital from showing up.

Health care dominated the debate. Person after person stood up and talked about the dire need for reform. One woman said she was at the point where she had to choose between food and medicine. An unemployed architect was worried about COBRA running out. We need help now, he said, adding he was dipping into his 401(k) to pay for his insurance. Robin Transo runs a free clinic in Crawford County and she talked about the need for preventative care. Her clinic served 850 people last year and gave 450 kids access to dental care.

The majority of attendants supported single payer and asked the Senator to be a vocal advocate for it. Feingold said that he is fighting for public option in closed door meetings. “Frankly, something as big as this, we’re much better off if we’re bipartisan,” said Feingold. He admitted that single payer is a better option “but we don’t have the votes.”

A few people said it was time for the Democrats to “start playing tough,” which was met with applause. There’s a growing sentiment across the country that government can’t do anything, one guy said. Where is the push back from the Democrats?

“I do push back,” said Feingold. “And I’m not a big government guy. I think government should stay out of things unless it has to get in. But for me to have to listen to people who are on Medicare saying that ‘it’s terrible that the government wants to get involved in health care,’ and ‘don’t touch my Medicare,’ is absurd. That’s what we’ve had to put up with. And here’s the other thing I really find fascinating. People are saying they are so worried about big government. Where were these people for eight years when I was trying to point out the big government intrusion in our lives through the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping?” [more cheers]

“Why was there no interest in the abuses of big government then?” he asked. “When a government abuses its power and goes into areas it doesn’t need to belong in, I’ll be the first to call them on it. But I will defend the VA, I will defend Medicare, I will defend Social Security. There’s a serious proposal out there being endorsed by many Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, that saying anybody under 55 will no longer be eligible for Medicare and Social Security as a public program That is their agenda, honestly stated. And I disagree.”

While health care seemed to be on everyone’s mind at this listening session, people brought up other concerns, including the need for strong environmental protections, the plight of local dairy farmers, and unfair trade practices. When asked about President Obama’s commitment of $8 billion for new nuclear reactors, Feingold said he was “not a fan” of Obama’s position, noting that Wisconsin could be a disposal site for radioactive waste.

Dr. Gene Farley, 83, has been a staunch advocate for universal single-payer health care for decades. He asked the first question: “How do we get health care reform passed this time, even though it’s not necessarily the one I want? We have to have it.”

“I think single payer is much better than the current system. I don’t back off from saying that. But obviously we do not have the votes to do this now,” said Feingold. “Gene Farley is my test. If Gene Farely is willing to say we’re going to do something less than single payer, and he doesn’t want to say it, I’m going to say it too. I’m worried only a comprehensive system can actually provide the savings and controls that we need.”

I spoke to Dr. Farley afterward. “I’m a great admirer of Russ. I don’t always agree with him. I feel he’s very ethical,” said Farley. “Most of the time I support him. Sometimes I’d love to push him. His strength is he’s not always pushable; his weakness is he’s not always pushable. But he’s good.”

I asked him if he wanted health care legislation to pass. “Obviously I’m for single payer,” he said. “I feel strongly that we have to pass what’s there now. . . . If we can pass this bill, however incomplete it is—it has a lot of good things in it—then we get a building permit. Once you have a building permit you can start building and you can modify the blueprints as you go along and make improvements. My goal is the nearer single payer we get, the better. I want that building permit.”

As President Obama guarantees $8 billion in loans to build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in nearly three decades, states are getting into the act, too.

Here in Wisconsin, nuclear power is tucked into state legislation called the Clean Energy Jobs Act.

“About 95% of the bill is great. The major portion of the bill talks about setting the first ever energy efficiency standards for Wisconsin and also boosting the use of renewable energy sources in the state,” says Diane Farsetta, the Carbon Free, Nuclear Free campaign coordinator with the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

“The problem is it would also gut the protections that we have had on the books for twenty-five years.”

Currently, Wisconsin law says that new nuclear reactors can’t be built here unless there is a federally licensed repository to permanently store the toxic radioactive waste that nuclear reactors produce. That type of facility doesn’t exist, so radioactive waste is piling up at the two working and one defunct nuclear reactor sites. Changing this law could allow more nuclear waste to pile up.

The Clean Energy Jobs Act is based on recommendations of the Governor’s global warming task force. “Here in Wisconsin giving support to new nuclear reactors is a way to get Republican votes,” says Farsetta. “It’s a political gamble. It’s not based on the science, it’s not based on the actual merits of this power source.”

“The people who are crafting the bill thought, hey, maybe we can get some votes that we wouldn’t get otherwise, if we add that language in there,” she says. “We’re saying, that’s not good enough. That’s not good enough to put communities across the state at risk to becoming de facto nuclear waste dump sites.”

Farsetta says there’s no need to pretend we have to choose between building more coal plants or building new nuclear reactors. Renewable energy costs are decreasing while storage systems for renewable power are becoming stronger.

“Nuclear power is just a dangerous and costly distraction from doing that,” says Farsetta.

On Tuesday February 23, the Carbon Free, Nuclear Free campaign is organizing a lobby day at the state capitol. Proponents of the bill hope it will pass by Earth Day.

“We have a window of opportunity now,” Farsetta says. She encourages people to call their representatives and say I’m really glad Wisconsin is considering a bill about climate change, but the nuclear power language needs to be taken out of it.

For more information contact the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice Carbon Free, Nuclear Free campaign at http://www.wnpj.org/cfnf.

I am deeply saddened by the news of the death of Howard Zinn. He was a longtime columnist for The Progressive, and his most recent piece, “The Nobel’s Feeble Gesture,” expressed his dismay about President Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here’s an excerpt:
“I think some progressives have forgotten the history of the Democratic Party, to which people have turned again and again in desperate search for saviors, later to be disappointed. Our political history shows us that only great popular movements, carrying out bold actions that awakened the nation and threatened the Establishment, as in the Thirties and the Sixties, have been able to shake that pyramid of corporate and military power and at least temporarily changed course.”

It was a “classic” Zinn piece—piercing but playful, saying in no uncertain terms what needed to be said. It’s not surprising he was a favorite columnist for many of our subscribers. He was my favorite, too.

On matters of war and peace, he was absolute. In our July 2009 issue, he wrote, “We’ve got to rethink this question of war and come to the conclusion that war cannot be accepted, no matter what. No matter what the reasons given, or the excuse: liberty, democracy; this, that. War is by definition the indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain. Think about means and ends, and apply it to war. The means are horrible, certainly. The ends, uncertain. That alone should make you hesitate. . . . We are smart in so many ways. Surely, we should be able to understand that in between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.”
What I loved most about Zinn was his sense of humor, which didn’t always translate onto the page. I didn’t know how funny he was until I heard him speak at our 95th anniversary party six years ago. He was gracious enough to attend our recent 100th birthday bash, too.

When I was a just becoming politicized, I read A People’s History of the United States and it blew my mind away. Reading Zinn’s book was a rite of passage in my activist circles, and I hope it still is.

It’s been nearly twenty years since I’ve read A People’s History, and it is no small thrill to be at a magazine that regularly publishes the work of a peace mongering historian, a World War II soldier who flew bombing missions over Europe but later staunchly advocated for peace. That was thing about Zinn—when he spoke of war, he knew what he was talking about.

Back in 2003 when George W. Bush was gunning for Saddam Hussein, Zinn wrote a cover story for The Progressive called “A Chorus Against War.”

This is how it ends:
“If Bush starts a war, he will be responsible for the lives lost, the children crippled, the terrorizing of millions of ordinary people, the American GIs not returning to their families. And all of use will be responsible for bringing that to a halt.

“Men who have no respect for human life or for freedom or justice have taken over this beautiful country of ours. It will be up to the American people to take it back.”

I would have loved to read what Zinn thought about the recent Supreme Court ruling allowing even more money into our political system. Or what he would have written after hearing Obama’s first State of the Union Address. The President’s speech hasn’t even started yet tonight, but this much I do know: Zinn would have reminded us, as he did over and over, that we need to organize our neighborhoods and workplaces and schools in order to create change, and not leave it up to the politicians.

“Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war,” Zinn wrote in a piece called, “Election Madness” back in March 2008. “Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.”

On his second day on the job, President Barack Obama promised to shut down Guantánamo by January 22, 2010. As we near the deadline, the U.S. detention center remains open, and nearly 200 detainees are still being held at the prison, including dozens already cleared for release.

To mark the ninth year of detaining prisoners without charge or trial, human rights activists are protesting in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, January 11, Witness Against Torture and the Center for Constitutional Rights collaborated on a vigil in front of the White House and a briefing at the National Press Club, where two former detainees at Gitmo addressed the audience via phone and video link.

“Nothing’s changed inside the prison,” said Omar Deghayes, a former inmate who now lives in the UK. “People are still being tortured, still being beaten, psychologically harmed.”

Former detainee Lakhdar Boumediene was finally released in May after seven years at Guantánamo, including two and a half years on hunger strike. “I try but I can’t forget,” said Boumediene, who called from his home in France. “When I wash my hand, I see the mark of the shackles.”

Boumediene was the lead plaintiff in the 2008 Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush. The court affirmed that Guantánamo detainees have the right to file writs of habeas corpus in U.S. federal courts.

January 11 was also the start of an eleven-day “Fast for Justice” demanding that Guantánamo close and torture end.

One of the reasons some Witness Against Torture activists have decided to fast is to be in solidarity with hunger strikers in the prison. “This isn’t a well known story, but there are a number of men in Guantánamo who have not eaten of their own volition since 2005, who are on hunger strike,” says Frida Berrigan, a national committee member of the War Resisters League who has been organizing with Witness Against Torture since its inception.

“They are being kept alive by force feeding twice a day. This is their act of resistance, of non-compliance, non-cooperation with their illegal detention,” she says. “So for some of us, this fast is our way of putting ourselves in relationship in some small way with the men who remain on hunger strike in Guantánamo.” Fifty people in the D.C. area are fasting, along with 150 nationwide.

Berrigan says that last year, the group decided to not do direct action because candidate Obama pledged to close the controversial facility.

“We were so excited and happy on January 22, 2009, when President Barack Obama, forty-eight hours after taking the oath of office, signed the executive order, and said very clearly, I’m going to shut down Guantanamo and I’m going to do it within a year,” Berrigan says.

“The hope that we felt and that excitement has been replaced by outrage, indignation, and frustration as we’ve seen the Obama Administration create more problems instead of solving the problem left to him by the Bush Administration,” she adds.

So this year, the group has descended upon Washington, D.C., to do direct action and talk to legislative aides. “Some of us did a silent prisoner walk, a very slow walk, through the Hart Building of the Senate, wearing orange jump suits, with a little banner on the back with the name of a man at Guantánamo who has been cleared for release, but remains at Guantánamo,” says Berrigan.

The foiled Christmas day attack only strengthened Berrigan’s commitment. “We’re facing a more hardened public, a public that is afraid, a public that is awash in hateful rhetoric, for the last three weeks,” she says. “At the same time, the failed terrorist attack proves our point. Where is that young Nigerian man being held? He’s being held in Michigan. He stood before a judge a week ago and pled not guilty. He’s going to have a trial and he will be sentenced if he is found guilty. Our criminal justice system, in this way, works.”

“All of the institutions that are supposed ensure that justice is followed and laws are followed have failed the men at Guantánamo and at Bagram,” says Berrigan. “People are detained throughout the world in the name of security in the War on Terror. So it’s up to us as people to not fail, to do something, to urge these institutions to not fail.”

But not at Guantánamo or at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at secret prisons elsewhere.

Civil liberties took a back seat to national security threats during the Bush Administration. It’s time for Obama to keep his promises to close Guantánamo and end torture.

I’m inspired by the grassroots activism happening at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Police have arrested more than 1000 people so far.

Here’s what my friend and colleague, Molly Stentz of WORT-FM, reported today on her blog from Copenhagen:

We know the drill by now. Head honchos arrive tomorrow. Checklist for today:

• Polish up the Bella Center (vaccum, mop, install more metal detectors)
• Remove untidy protest contingent
• Move in on the groups that police have been surveilling and detain their organizers
• Seize any likely protest equipment
• Arrest & detain now, deal with consequences later

One of the best sources of info is Indymedia Denmark.

For updates from the grassroots, visit Via Campesina, 350.org, and, of course, Democracy Now.

The Yes Men are once again up to their shenanigans.