A rap artist was forced off the stage at an inaugural event in Washington, DC January 20 after he performed an anti-Obama diatribe. The scene unfolded at The Hamilton one block from the White House as Lupe Fiasco, a Grammy-nominated rapper from Chicago, began performing “Words I Never Said”, a single he recorded in February 2011.
Issue 951
News
Green Left Fighting Fund
Analysis
The Only Democracy In the Middle East (TM) held elections on January 22, which is what all good democracies do — even if not all those actually governed by the Israeli Knesset got to vote.
World
An estimated 115,000 people marched in Bilbao, in the Basque Country in the north of the Spanish state, on January 12, undeterred by pouring rain and near-freezing conditions.
Venezuela's Vice-President Nicolas Maduro and government ministers marched with up to one million people on January 23 to defend the Bolivarian revolution, which has signficantly reduced poverty and promoted new forms of participatory democracy, on the country's Democracy Day. The right-wing opposition march turned out to be a small rally. Further, sectors of the far right have called on the armed forces to resist what they referred to as the “invasion” of “Castro-communism” in Venezuela.
Indian socialist feminist Kavita Krishnan spoke to Green Left TV's Pip Hinman about the new movement against gender violence in India.
Culture
This Invasion Day, a mob of Aboriginal rappers released a free mixtape to show solidarity with the Idle No More movement in Turtle Island, the body of land now known as North America.
French grindcore band Blockheads have hammered out a solid reputation in the European extreme music scene over the past two decades. Their lyrics spit bile against corruption, colonialism, the corporate media, inequality, pollution, pro-lifers and much more. Mat Ward spoke to bassist and vocalist Erik about their new album, This World Is Dead, and the political situation in France.