Truthout 3/8

Maya Schenwar | A Step Backward for Women's Health Care?
Maya Schenwar, Truthout: "Monday evening, after a rousing speech in Philadelphia pushing for health reform passage, President Obama will celebrate International Women's Day with a White House reception honoring women around the world for their achievements. This recognition is important. However, International Women's Day - the brainchild of a group of predominantly socialist women with revolutionary dreams of equality and basic human rights for all - presents an opportunity for a little more expansive thinking on the part of the Obama administration."
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Anne Elizabeth Moore | Report From Cambodia's Garment Factories
Anne Elizabeth Moore, Truthout: "Meet the international working class - the faceless laborers that likely had a hand in stitching together your mid-range jeans, your jaunty parka or your favorite silky smooth T-shirt: They are super giggly and sharing snacks in the back of a converted military pickup truck over their lunch break."
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Department of Homeland Security Immigration Agencies Fall Short
William Fisher, Truthout: "As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) celebrates its seventh anniversary, its immigration agencies are struggling to 'create more humane ways to enforce broken laws' - but trying to enforce their way out of a broken immigration system is ultimately 'a losing proposition.' That was the conclusion reached in a new report on immigration that faulted the sprawling agency for 'lack of transparency.'"
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Connie Schultz | Making Time for Women's Stories
Connie Schultz, Truthout: "Did you know that in addition to being a thank-you-God deliverance from February, March is also National Women's History Month?"
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Fiction of Marjah as City Was US Information War
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service: "For weeks, the US public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a 'city of 80,000 people' as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marjah was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centers in Helmand."
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Alarm Bells Sounded Over Skyrocketing Number of New Anti-Government Groups
Grace Huang, Truthout: "Driven by anger toward 'political, demographic and economic changes,' a surge of anti-government extremist groups occurred this year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)."
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Are Latinos White? Census Confusion Sparks Debate Over Racial Identity
Hector Manuel Castro, El Diario de El Paso (Translation: Ryan Croken): "Anthropologists and Latino residents of El Paso have called into question recent statements made by a social activist that advise Hispanics to register their race as "white" when it comes time to fill out the census form this month."
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The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste
Michelle Alexander, TomDispatch.com: "Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its 44th president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation's 'triumph over race.' Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America."
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Robert Rubin: Why Won't He Go Away?
Dean Baker, Truthout: "As Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin put in place all the pieces that set up the economy for the disaster that we are now living through. He pushed legislation that weakened regulation of the financial sector; he cheered on a stock bubble that eventually grew to $10 trillion and he established an overvalued dollar as a matter of official policy."
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"The Oasis"
Leslie Thatcher, Truthout: "When young parents Betsey and Tony Brown moved to Tallahassee from Seattle in the late 1990's, they were dismayed by the absence of public schools like those they had known in Seattle where they had owned a book warehouse for teachers that sold to classrooms and had seen a 'literature-rich' approach to education. Betsey was also nostalgic for the Manhattan Country School, a progressive K-8 school she had attended as a child."
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Arizona to Criminalize Presence of Undocumented Immigrants
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "A bill currently working its way through the Arizona legislature would criminalize the presence of undocumented immigrants in the state through an expansion of its trespass laws, increase the role of local law enforcement in upholding immigration law and penalize anyone who harbors an undocumented immigrant."
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Review: "Rounded Up: Artificial Terrorists and Muslim Entrapment After 9/11"
Katherine Hughes, Truthout: "In a time and place where Muslims have learned it's prudent to be silent, we should be especially grateful to Shamshad Ahmad for having the courage to write his book, 'Rounded Up.' The book opens with a quote from the Prophet Muhammad, 'The highest form of jihad is to speak the truth in the face of an unjust ruler,' and Ahmad's book is the embodiment of this quote. Understated and powerful, with respect for fact, each page is testament to his belief that the truth can indeed set us free."
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Growing Low-Oxygen Zones in Oceans Worry Scientists
Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers: "Lower levels of oxygen in the Earth's oceans, particularly off the United States' Pacific Northwest coast, could be another sign of fundamental changes linked to global climate change, scientists say. They warn that the oceans' complex undersea ecosystems and fragile food chains could be disrupted."
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Ray McGovern | Mullen Wary of Israeli Attack on Iran
Ray McGovern, Consortium News: "Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came home with sweaty palms from his mid-February visit to Israel. Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the US into war with Iran."
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