Feature Archives

While the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates public health measures to reduce the impact of the virus on our communities and health care systems, the National Lawyers Guild urges vigilance and resistance to authoritarian and violent tendencies. Emergency powers often criminalize movement, freedom of expression, protest, and oppressed communities. Even though the state has severely restricted the right to assemble, people still find creative ways to protest.

California residents have been ordered to "stay at home" to suppress the spread of COVID-19. Stringent mitigation measures mean millions are without an income. Students face the possibility of going hungry. Curbside communities and incarcerated persons are especially at risk for contracting the virus. The stress and isolation of the pandemic take a toll on mental health. Not waiting for government action, people are stepping up with mutual aid efforts to assist those most in need.

After spending seven years in prison under draconian conditions for exposing US war crimes, Chelsea Manning was re-imprisoned one year ago in an attempt to coerce her to testify in a grand jury related to WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. When Chelsea continued to refuse to testify on a principled stand of opposition to the unjust and corrupt practice of secret grand juries, she was also slammed with fines of $1,000 per day in an attempt by judge Anthony Trenga to pressure her into testifying.

The World Health Organization officially named COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. As of that date, over 128,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide and 4,717 people have died (updated statistics). Among the most vulnerable are the elderly, the immunocompromised, the prison population, people who are experiencing homelessness, and hospital workers who have a high likelihood of exposure to the contagious virus as they care for the public health.

John Malkin speaks with Mark Hosler, founding member of Negativland, the art, music, film, activist, culture jamming collective established in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970's. Mixing original materials and original music with things taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, Negativland surreally re-arrange these found bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to. In 2004 Negativland worked with Creative Commons to write the Creative Commons Sampling License, an alternative to existing copyrights that is now widely used by many artists, writers, musicians, film makers, and websites.

In the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of Trump that concluded with an acquittal on February 5, Republicans senators refused to let people with direct knowledge of Trump's behavior testify. Trump's defense attorneys asserted that a President could do whatever benefited him personally if he thought it was in the public interest. The same day Trump was acquitted, protesters in the Bay Area and across the country hit the streets and called out the trial out as a “hoax," “sham,” and “fake," using some of Trump's favorite words to describe events that don‘t accord with his notions.

On January 4, thousands of people rallied and marched in Northern California, proclaiming "US Out Of Iraq" and "No War With Iran." Various groups, including ANSWER Coalition and Code Pink, called for a rally and march in San Francisco before the U.S. assassinated Iranian general Qassem Suleimani near the Baghdad airport on January 3. That extrajudicial killing swelled the turnout in San Francisco while anti-war activists quickly announced similar actions at other Northern California locations then and throughout the month. A Global Day of Protest occurred on Saturday, January 25.