Highlights from the Upcoming February 2019 Issue of The New York Megaphone

The New York Megaphone is proud to publish Paul Hawken, author of Drawdown, a new book that is the “most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.”

Here’s a website exclusive, a sneak peak of our report on

Affordable Housing:

Here are the facts. In Brooklyn, in the last ten years, the cost to buy a home went up 68%. From $563K to $948K. Around WWI, rent was on average about $40 a month in NYC. Adjusted for inflation, this is $2,535 in today’s dollars. This is about one third less than today’s average rent of $3,584.

The “Free Market” is not a god. It’s not even a real thing. It’s just a concept that screws working people over. It’s a false god because there’s an unwritten rule that you must not question its power. This article will show: We can do better when we trash this idol.

This reporter last month went to a presentation and slide show from the Democratic Socialists of America. You know the DSA, the grassroots group that helped win a US Congressional seat for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The talk was called Taking Back Our Homes: Radical History of Tenant Activism in New York City on October 24, 2018.

In the early 20th Century, our city’s tenants suffered from zero regulation, a housing shortage, and the spectre of landlords raising rents exponentially. Manhattan was packed, with 2.3 million people at the time of World War I, much more than today (1.6 million). Apartments were often crowded, shoddy tenements.  

But immigrant women and unionized workers, with support from the Socialist Party (DSA’s predecessor), began to successfully organize to improve conditions....The struggles of ordinary renters eventually resulted in laws to protect tenants: rent control, rent stabilization, and cooperative housing.

Here’s an excerpt from the Megaphone’s

analysis of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi:

Here’s our take on the murder of Washington Post’s Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi. This was a man who spoke out against the US/Saudi War and was highly critical of President Trump. We plan to report this story this way:

According to Seth Abramson’s new book, Proof of Collusion, it’s not just about Trump and Russia. Trump is universally very bribeable. Trump has proven willing to collude with anyone with the money for a big pay-off. That complex mix of big money influencers includes Russia, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

Trump immediately exonerated Saudi Crown Prince MBS for the killing of Khashoggi. Trump benefitted clearly from the death: one less journalist from the mainstream media that Trump claimed was the “enemy of the people.”

Nothing is black and white, and even Trump’s critique of the media can be useful. They often do kowtow to the US Government line. They certainly did so with the killing of Khashoggi. All emotion. No deep reporting. No exploration of history, or this man Jamal Khashoggi’s intriguing background in international power politics, subterfuge, coups, guerrilla warfare, faith, doubt, and power. The US Media instead made Khashoggi into a martyr, a saint.

Meanwhile, the world is left asking who he really was.

He was a man close to the Iran/Contra scandal, through his uncle, but he never wrote about it. He was close to the 9/11 cover-up, through his friend Bin Laden, but he never wrote about that. He worked as a “high profile journalist” and sure, wasn’t bad at denouncing the obvious corruption of his native monarchy. But he never really stood up to the lies of the war machine, or the power plays of US hegemony. Instead, he died in darkness.

Human rights violations come in all forms, whether it be the imprisonment of someone for simply exercising their free speech, a woman not being allowed her reproductive rights, or a journalist being assassinated for his opinions. Together, with 100,000 print editions of the New York Megaphone,  we can fight these injustices much more effectively than if we fight them alone. This is why we need your help