Then an interview with John Siceloff of PBS’s NOW on democracy’s real heroes. Watching the election coverage it would be easy to believe that democracy begins and ends in the voting booth. That is in part because politics has become a consumer good. But real change takes a long time to enact and it usually begins at the local level.

Today marks the 79th anniversary of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash that precipitated the Great Depression. Today, we face another crisis both in our economy and stand on the threshold, if the polls are accurate, of a new administration which promises to reframe both our democracy and our economy.

Words, language, rhetoric have been given a lot of attention during this election season. From Hillary Clinton's mockery of Barack Obama's prose to McCain and Palin's insistence that the young senator is all rhetoric and no record there has been a curious appeal to the meaninglessness of words. Yet at the same time, Obama's opponents hang on to every last sentence uttered by his former preacher Jeremiah Wright as if Barack

The rest of the world will likely be watching the U.S. elections very closely. It is no mystery that U.S. foreign policy often has a greater impact abroad than it does at home. Over the weekend the United States continued to act with impunity as it launched raids into Syria and Pakistan killing innocent civilians and generally flouting international law.

The rest of the world will likely be watching the U.S. elections very closely. It is no mystery that U.S. foreign policy often has a greater impact abroad than it does at home. Over the weekend the United States continued to act with impunity as it launched raids into Syria and Pakistan killing innocent civilians and generally flouting international law.

Because of the disproportionate impact of U.S. foreign policy on the rest of the world, the presidential elections take on a global significance that is often overlooked. The global community, however, is watching closely. With a highly unpopular outgoing president who has alienated even close allies the stakes this year are particularly high.

How is the war being read here at home? Well, in ways you might not expect. This summer, a three-story mural appeared in Sunset Park, NY just off the Brooklyn-Queens expressway. “Arm Yourself With the Knowledge to Think for Yourself,” the mural read, “We Are Not Government Issue.” Organized by Groundswell, a New York City based non-profit, the mural reflects the military experience of women in Iraq and reveals the deceptions that

Robert Fisk has been covering the Middle East for over thirty years as a correspondent for The Independent. His father, a soldier in World War I, received a medal for fighting what was called the Great War for civilization. That war, in many ways, still rages. In his new collection of essays, The Age of the Warrior, Fisk outlines how America has adopted the civilizing mission of its imperial predecessors, believing

Robert Fisk is Britain's leading foreign correspondent in the Middle East, currently writing for The Independent. He has lived for decades in Lebanon, and wrote with vivid detail and insight about its excruciating civil war which took the lives of 150,000 people in the years 1975-1990 as well as on a host of other areas where US engagement or indifference has not enriched our reputation around the globe. His latest book The Age of the Warrior is witty and wise and covers the map of issues inside the Middle East and in the US – shedding light on areas and issues which remain in the shadows of mainstream media coverage or cloaked in platitudes and prejudice.

Soldiers Speak Out is a powerful, first-hand testament to the reality of the military experience told entirely in the words of American veterans who have been to war and are now opposing it. What you're seeing here is a short trailer for the project. We hear how they came to join the military, about their experiences in training and in war, and what led to the turning point when they decided