To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.

×
      LATEST NEWSOPINIONCLIMATEECONOMY POLITICS RIGHTS & JUSTICEWAR & PEACE
      LATEST NEWS
      OPINION

      michael winship

      A participant holding a Black Lives Matter sign at the protest.

      The Loudest Voices Make the Greatest Changes

      Playwright and screenwriter Richard Wesley on Black Lives Matter, Black Power, Trump, and the noise from the balcony.

      Michael Winship
      Sep 13, 2020

      In mid-May, this year's Pulitzer Prizes were announced, and as I scrolled down the list of recipients, I was surprised and delighted to see that the award for music had gone to Anthony Davis' opera The Central Park Five, its libretto written by my longtime friend and colleague Richard Wesley. The piece tells the now well-known story of the five innocent young men falsely accused of rape and assault by police and much of the public, including Donald Trump.

      Two weeks after the Pulitzer announcement, George Floyd lay dead in Minneapolis, a policeman's knee to his throat. Within days, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, protests grew around the world as Black Lives Matter and many others rose up against police brutality and social and economic injustice.

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      Black Lives Matter
      As Industry Ramps Up Efforts to Kill Medicare for All, New Tool Shows 'Why We Desperately Need, and Can Absolutely Afford, #SinglePayer'

      As Industry Ramps Up Efforts to Kill Medicare for All, New Tool Shows 'Why We Desperately Need, and Can Absolutely Afford, #SinglePayer'

      "The industry is not going to go down without a fight"

      Andrea Germanos
      Feb 22, 2019

      As a new interactive tool "paints a startling picture of how much Americans are spending on healthcare"--and bolsters the case for a single-payer system--new reporting sheds light on a powerful industry effort to make sure upcoming Medicare for All proposals are dead in the water.

      As the New York Timeslays out,

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      News
      Trump's FCC Wants to Kill a Free and Open Internet

      Trump's FCC Wants to Kill a Free and Open Internet

      The commission votes on Thursday whether to end net neutrality and place the internet under the thumb of corporate America.

      Bill Moyers
      Michael Winship
      Dec 11, 2017

      Over at BillMoyers.com, The Moyers team has been in the fight for net neutrality from the very beginning. Our documentary Net at Risk was perhaps the first on television to alert the nation to the danger of a corporate takeover of the internet. When the mainstream media largely ignored the story, we gave advocates for net neutrality a national hearing. We followed former FCC commissioner Michael Copps and others to unofficial town meetings when the George W. Bush FCC refused to sanction such events. And we celebrated in the public interest when the Obama FCC voted in 2015 to protect and enforce net neutrality.

      But every time we think the battle to protect the internet is won, the forces of greed, power and control come right back at us. After he and the Republicans won the 2016 election, Donald Trump appointed Ajit Pai, a former executive from Verizon, to head the FCC. Pai is leading the corporate crusade to overturn net neutrality, doing his best to give Verizon and the other telecommunications giants exactly what they want. It's classic regulatory capture, a government agency capitulating to the very industry it's supposed to oversee, the old fox in the henhouse switch that means death to the chickens.

      Keep ReadingShow Less
      Opinion
      SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
      Quality journalism. Progressive values. Direct to your inbox.
      Follow Us
      Most Popular

      'The Billionaire Bailout': FDIC Chair Says the Biggest Deposit Accounts at SVB Held $13 Billion

      'This P*ssy Grabbed Back': Stormy Daniels Speaks Out After Trump Indictment

      3 Children, 3 Adults Killed in Shooting at Christian Elementary School in Nashville

      'Noah's Wounds Were Not Survivable': Parents Allow Detailed View of AR-15 Carnage

      Exonerated Central Park 5 Member Reacts to Trump Indictment With One-Word Statement

      'This Scam Is a Non-Starter': Dems Blast McCarthy's Latest Call for Painful Cuts

      It Is Time to Show the American People Photographs of Children Massacred by Gun Violence

      Biden Urged to Crack Down on 'Terrifying' Use of AI by Medicare Advantage Insurers

      The Rule of Law Being Eviscerated by Republican Judges

      Trump Is Running to Lead a Fascist Nation—Not This One

      SUPPORT OUR WORK.
      We are independent, non-profit, advertising-free and 100%
      reader supported.