Bill Maher, host of TV's Politically Incorrect, is possibly the most visible critic of the drug war in the states. Last week, he spoke out at the NORML convention about what really needs to happen to end the war on drugs.
Judith Helfand and Daniel B. Gold's "Blue Vinyl," is a humorous but sobering tale of how polyvinyl chloride, or vinyl, takes lives and hurts the environment.
With 75,000 marchers in D.C., up to 50,000 in San Francisco and thousands more across the country, this weekend's anti-war rallies surprised organizers and authorities alike.
The NORML campaign featuring NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg has generated lots of publicity, but it may have undermined NORML's objective: to take the heat off city pot smokers.
Though their messages are important and hard-hitting, Noam Chomsky and his soulmates at FAIR may be falling behind the times in their unwillingness or inability to change.
Who are you, what do you care about, who do you admire? A report to the AlterNet Community about your demographics and opinions reveals a new kind of reader -- the "AlterNet news activist."
Paranoia has gripped America since 9/11, hijacking social progress and undermining freedoms. AlterNet.org's executive editor charts a sensible way to move beyond the fear and build a strong and secure nation.
As founder of the National Toxics Campaign, a green business leader and eventually a progressive candidate for Congress, John O'Connor led a notable life of hard-fought battles.
A rabidly pro-war cadre of journalists and pundits have become cheerleaders for an aggressive and expansive war, urging Bush to escalate the battle beyond Afghanistan and to use more force.
Half a dozen big name groups are attacking the "shameful [corporate] profiteering and opportunism" that has followed Sept. 11, and have launched a campaign to fight it.
In the wake of Sept. 11, our paralyzed citizenry has allowed social setbacks and corporate greed to flourish under a smoke screen of patriotism. But now is the time, as Bill Moyers explains in a stirring address excerpted here, to resist those who would exploit our national tragedy.
Stranded overseas, an American writer surveys the European reaction to the terrorist attacks and hopes one outcome of the tragedy will be greater attention by Americans to world affairs.
The next big globalization protests will be held in D.C. this September. While a subtext of violence permeates the planning efforts, activists expect a massive mobilization.
If Bush has a way with words, it's for twit-like wit and malapropian fluency. But according to media critic Mark Crispin Miller his seeming dyslexia represents much, more more. Also, an <a href="/story.html?StoryID=10988">excerpt</a> from Miller's new book.
The WTO confrontation in Seattle was by any measure a huge media event worldwide, focusing attention on human rights, environmental destruction and child labor as major byproducts of unfettered world trade. But Seattle was also a watershed for the non-corporate independent media. Comprehensive, powerful and immediate coverage of the dizzying array of activities and clashes on the Seattle streets showcased, really for the first time, the independent media's capacity to provide multifaceted, in-depth coverage of a world-shaping news event.
In a transaction that leaves its editorial and management team intact, The Village Voice was purchased from owner Leonard Stern by a group of investors led by a New York-based money management firm. The price for the Voice, and Stern's chain of six other weekly papers, including the LA Weekly, was said to be in the range of $150-160 million.
An interview with investigative reporter Gary Webb, who spent nine months surfing online porn sites to conclude that today's teens are the first "post-censorship generation."
From army spinmeisters working at CNN to sweatshop-like conditions in Silicon Valley, this year's Top Ten Censored Stories highlight some huge stories that the mainstream media missed.
A set of once-secret chemical industry documents -- exposing decades of fraud, lies and coverups about thousands of chemical-related deaths -- has sparked both an upcoming PBS report and a wave of activism across the nation.
Will the Cultural Creatives fundamentally change our world, or is this a case of false hopes and inflated numbers? If there are really 50 million of them, why aren't they more visible?
What do media criticism, Ralph Nader, concern about the drug war and a little sexual titillation all have in common? They topped the list of best selling AlterNet stories for the year 2000.
Just when the drug war had started swinging into reform mode, the most conservative administration in years stepped into the White House. Will George W. Bush ignore the mainstream backlash against the drug war?
Jeffrey Chester, one of key organizers fighting for open Internet access, speaks about the major victories scored in the recent AOL-Time Warner merger.
By seeding many of the great social movements of the last three decades, progressive philanthropist David Hunter left a legacy of profound social change.
When Bill Clinton called Pacifica radio station WBAI on election day morning, he was expecting to help shore up voter support for Al Gore and his wife Hillary in New York City. There's no way he expected to engage in one of the most candid discussions about American politics in recent memory.
No issue has dominated lefty political debate more this election cycle than the Nader/Gore dilemma. But the choice between voting your conscience and voting for the lesser of two evils is a false one. Progressives can have their cake and eat it, too. Here's how.
The Democratic National Convention was a panorama of corporate excess set against a swirling, clashing background of festive protests and street anger, all under the scrutiny of 15,000 journalists and incomparable police power. In the end, a pretty clear list of winners and losers emerged from the heat of LA.
Claiming there was bomb in a nearby van, Los Angeles County Sheriffs temporarily closed down Patriotic Hall, home to the Indy Media Center and the Shadow Conventions, just as both were about to broadcast live reports from LA.
Chanting "Gore, Gore political whore" and "How much does democracy cost?" several hundred raucous demonstrators made life miserable for the Blue Dog Democrats attending an extravagant corporate sponsored event on the Santa Monica pier on Sunday night.
The already forbidding environment around the Staples Center, site of the Democratic National Convention, has been turned into an armed camp, encircled by a double set of tall, heavy-duty fences and thousands of cops. Even so, activists are kicking off a week of protests and fighting to make their voices heard.
Alongside the corporate media giants, the Philly Independent Media Center is weaving together a multimedia web of alternative news -- including live TV shows -- to offer Americans information often ignored or misrepresented by the mainstream.
If you smoke pot, you're less likely to get busted in Pennsylvania or North Dakota than in Alaska or New York -- and much more likely in certain Texas counties, where 1 in 15 people have been arrested for marijuana smoking.
In response to arbitrary rules that may keep him out of the presidential debates, Ralph Nader is brainstorming some unusual ways to spread his message that may turn politics on its head.
