A.I.’s Dirty Secret: It’s Powered by Digital Sweatshops

Millions of human workers in digital sweatshops power Artificial Intelligence by Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action-LA The current strikes by screen-writers and actors in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have focused attention on the use of AI-- "Artificial Intelligence" using large language models by big corporations -- to try to automate creative jobs and other work, through the use of computers that can simulate voices, generate designs, and produce meaningful literary and analytical texts. [...]

Poetry Corner: I Make Promises Before I Dream

I Make Promises Before I Dream [excerpt] © 2021 by Tongo Eisen-Martin   No unclaimed, cremated mothers this year Nor collateral white skin   No mothers folding clothes to a corporate park preamble No sons singing under the bright lights of a lumber yard   Quantum reaganomics and the tap steps of turning on a friend   New York trophy parts among the limbs of decent people   Being an enraged artist [...]

Red Horizons

by Mumia Abu-Jamal https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/red-horizons/ The images were startling: New York City, summer 2023. Its horizon lit by a ruby-red sky, as sun light tries to shine through smoke and ash from Canada’s roaring fire season.   First came the shock that Canada had a “fire season.” I thought it had only four seasons. Second was learning that Canada had over four hundred fires, raging on its eastern forest shores.   Then the [...]

The Silent Slaughter of the Flower of Ukraine’s Youth

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies As Ukraine prepared to launch its much heralded but long delayed counteroffensive, the media published a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier with his finger on his lips, symbolizing the need for secrecy to retain some element of surprise for this widely telegraphed operation. Now that the offensive has been under way for two weeks, it is clear that the Ukrainian government and its Western [...]

When Will US Join Global Call to End Ukraine War?

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies When Japan invited the leaders of Brazil, India and Indonesia to attend the G7 summit in Hiroshima, there were glimmers of hope that it might be a forum for these rising economic powers from the Global South to discuss their advocacy for peace in Ukraine with the wealthy Western G7 countries that are militarily allied with Ukraine and have so far remained deaf to [...]

Greetings to the United Nations International Independent Expert Mechanism Delegation

by Mumia Abu-Jamal Greetings to the UN delegation. Initially, I wish to thank the members of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, who prepared and filed an amicus brief in my case. And, of course, the delegation of jurists, lawyers, and scholars from the UN International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement now visiting the United States. I specifically want to greet [...]

Report back From US Delegations To Cuba, June 17

Report back From US Delegations To Cuba: May Day, Trade Union & Solidarity Conferences With a population of 11 million, Cuba, 90 miles from the US, exists as an independent, sovereign and peaceful nation. Cuba exports doctors, not weapons or bombs. Yet it has been the victim of Washington’s bipartisan economic, military and political war for over 60 years. Since the 1959 overthrow of the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, by the revolution [...]

Poetry Corner: The Equation

The Equation by Cosmo the Poet   FREEDOM = Department 3C + Yard 4B – MONEY:   Do you know what it is like to be caged like an animal? In a box that is unfit to be healthy for human growth? For deep inside the bowels of cellblock 4B are men and women Who breathe like me, hurt like me, Cry like me, and are yearning to be free – like [...]

“Cracks in the Abode of Death”

“Cracks in the Abode of Death” by Mumia Abu-Jamal https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/cracks-in-the-abode-of-death/ Few people really know the nature of death rows. It is used as a political prop by politicians and is thus a stepping stone to their gateway of power. But Death Row is really far more than that. It is a place where men and women and until recently even juveniles were sent to live and die in aching loneliness and despair. [...]

In Memoriam: Jane Eliot Holmberg Dorrel – August 22, 1954 – April 19, 2023

Jane Dorrel died peacefully on April 19th, 2023, surrounded by her husband Frank, her daughter Emily, her sister Chrissy and Chrissy’s husband Peter. She had Stage 4 Breast Cancer, which she dealt with for 12 years. She also had a stroke in October of 2022 and sepsis in January of 2023. The sepsis returned. Many thanks go to her doctors: Dr. Lasika Seneviratne and Dr. Alex Chai. And to the nurses and [...]

Harry Belafonte, Anti-imperialist Human Rights Activist

Mainstream media obituaries of Harry Belafonte emphasize his breakthrough successes as a singer, actor, and producer of records, films, and television, but tend to limit their praise to his iconic public figure stature as an advocate of civil rights. In fact, Belafonte was an unreconstructed radical and socialist throughout his long life and career. Born in Harlem of West Indian immigrant parents in 1927, he lived in Jamaica with his grandmother from [...]

Mayans Protest Land Grab

by Michael Novick Over a dozen masked Mayans and several solidarity supporters disrupted a presentation at the Spanish language stage of the LA Times Festival of Books on the campus of the University of Southern California on Sunday, April 23. The ire at the interview of Richard Hansen by a reporter for LA Times at one of the last events of the weekend literary event grew out of Hansen's role in the [...]

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