Workers Rights Consortium

http://www.workersrights.org/

If you've never heard of this organization, and especially if you are currently attending a college or university, now is as good a time as ever to get familiar with this group. This is a non-profit, independent organization that monitors labor practices in foreign countries for clothing companies. Especially those who produce collegiate apparel. I am proud to say that I (as of 2009) attend a college that is a member of the WRC. Their code of conduct includes bans on forced overtime, child labor, and discrimination; while upholding living wages, safe working conditions, and collective bargaining. They have done investigations into some major companies including Wal-Mart, Levi, and Nike. They do not warn the factories ahead of time of their arrival and they publicly report their findings. Right now their main bread & butter is in collegiate apparel, but I read somewhere that they are trying to move into the mainstream clothing market and the related companies. Here's hoping.

Global Exchange

http://www.globalexchange.org/

An organization that is 21 years and going strong worldwide. They are dedicated to education and action on issues such as sweatshops, war, human rights, environment, and have become one of the strongest supporters of Fair Trade products.

What is Fair Trade?--Essentially, it is making sure that the people who harvest crops, grow coffee, and make shoes/clothing are getting paid a wage (considering exchange rates) comparable to a wage of someone who lives in an industrialized nation, along with receiving vacation pay, sick days, and clean working conditions. The core idea of Fair Trade is to treat the workers of these other countries as our equals, with the hope that we can improve their lives and economies.

I strongly encourage you to get involved with this organization any way that you can; or if nothing else, support this organization and check out their Fair Trade store.

Alternative Tentacles

http://www.alternativetentacles.com/

It is an absolute must that I post this website here. This would probably not usually fit my normal criteria, but this has many reasons for being an exception. This is one of the longest-running independent music labels in the world. It features punk rock, hardcore, spoken word, and so much more!

The main reason that I must post this website here is that Jello Biafra, the founder of the label, was one of the main inspirations for this website. It is important to note that the name for this website came from the name of one of his spoken word pieces, "Wake Up And Smell The Noise." Through his music, activism, and spoken word albums, he brought it home to me that if I feel as passionately as I do on so many issues that I should no longer be silent, but speak out and get as loud as I can about it. For the last 20+ years, he's been saying those oh-so-important words, "Don't hate the media, become the media." It's the work of those who did become the media and those who became, as Ghandi put it "the change" they wanted to see in the world, that I am really trying to support with this website.

To this website I owe a debt of gratitude, if nothing else, for the inspiration for this website. At the Alternative Tentacles page you can hear many samples of his spoken word and musical works for free, as well as the work of many other artists who've had releases on the label including Howard Zinn, Nomeansno, Greg Palast, Pansy Division, Noam Chomsky, Wesley Willis, and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Consistently one of the best, most informative, non-biased, and reliable news sources in the whole world. I'm happy to begin the network with a news source that is respected the world over, but has yet to truly break through here in America as a news source to pay attention to. Maybe it's because they've remained a non-profit company all of these years, and that would never fly with the corporations that own all of the news outlets in this country if The Guardian ever tried to get American circulation.

This phenomenal news source deserves your attention and support.

Genesis

My hope for this website is ambitious, but by no means unobtainable.

The plan for this website has always been to be an archive, or a hub, of sorts. The original idea was to be a place where people could find alternative sources for news, but the idea has since happily expanded into covering any alternative sources of information that I feel are appropriate for this hub.

There are a lot of issues that I feel passionately about and that I feel are most certainly worth fighting for. Reliable news, government corruption, poverty, hunger/thirst, globalization, corporate power, class war, racism, oil consumption, war, and so on. There is information to be found about all of these issues and more, but it can be very hard to sift through the millions of websites that are out there to be able to find what you're looking for or even to find what is reliable.

This site is where you can make sense of all the noise and start finding the resources that you want. Check back every Sunday for a new link.

Welcome to The Noise Network.

Quote #1

"Don't hate the media, become the media."

-Jello Biafra