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State of Exception Campaign Update
JUST 11 days left for our State of Exception Indiegogo Campaign
We are entering the home-stretch of our campaign, just 1.5 weeks left!
Today, we are announcing some new campaign perks and launching a video update. Please share this video far and wide, and encourage others to donate so we can reach our goal! As most of you know, this is a grassroots project that is being funded completely outside of the corporate broadcast model – funded by YOU and others who want to take a stand against human rights injustices and the tyranny of corporate interests.
We have had tremendous success so far and we have less than $10,000 to raise! We’re asking everyone to please dig your heels in and do some personal outreach within your networks to help give our campaign a final push.
Please continue to SHARE THE CAMPAIGN on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, as well as directly emailing anyone who would connect with this story. The statistics demonstrate that direct email is the best for inspiring people to take action, so if there’s anyone you know would be interested in joining our growing community, please send them a message today.
Please stay posted to our Twitter feed and blog at stateofexception.com for regular content posts.
As always, THANK YOU!
P.S. A huge shout out to one of our favorite NGOs: Witness.org for producing the animation in our video
With Trouble Finding Hosts, IOC Changes Rules
Featured image – “Hackney Looting” by pure evil
The IOC announced sweeping changes to the Olympic Games yesterday, including what they are calling a “more affordable bidding process,” making the system cheaper and more flexible to attract future candidates — including the option of holding events outside the host city or country. The new allowances are most certainly a response to the recent 2022 Winter Games bidding debacle, whereby all of the IOC’s preferred hosts have been removing themselves from consideration one-by-one. By now, Sweden, Poland, Ukraine, Switzerland and Germany have all withdrawn from the bidding process, most citing overwhelming public opposition to hosting the Games. Currently, the IOC has just two candidates interested in hosting the 2022 Games – Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China.
Kazakhstan is an Oil State which ranks 140th out of 177 countries in the world in corruption, as measured by transparency.org. Human Rights Watch notes that Kazakhstan maintains a poor human rights record, and that “torture remains common in places of detention.” Kazakhstan also finished last in 11 of the 14 categories the IOC uses to score bids. Beijing just hosted the Summer Games six years ago, when they displaced 1.5 million people and spent an estimated $43 billion.
Justice for Bhopal: The Yes Men Show Us What It Could Have Looked Like (Video)
As we pointed out in the blog post earlier today, this is the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, when Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) leaked toxic gases, including methyl isocyanate, into the city of Bhopal, India. Thousands died immediately, and thousands more have died from the ongoing complications from the poisonous gas exposure and the shoddy clean-up job. No responsibility has been taken by Dow, an official sponsor of the 2016 Rio Olympic games, and no compensation given to victims.
If only The Yes Men ran Dow Chemical. Check out the video below for an example of what Dow’s response could have – should have – been.
Featured image from http://www.bhopal.org – Photographed by Colin Toogood
Remembering Bhopal: 30 Years Ago Today
Overnight on December 2/3, 1984, the factory owned by the U.S. multi-national Union Carbide Corp. (now Dow Chemical) accidentally leaked cyanide gas and killed thousands of mostly poor Indians in the city of Bhopal.
Thirty years later, thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste remain buried at the site, slowly poisoning the drinking water of more than 50,000 people and adversely affecting their health. Another 100,000 people exposed to the gas continue to suffer with a prevalence of cancer, blindness, respiratory problems, immune and neurological disorders. Read more