Truthout 6/24

William Rivers Pitt | These Empty Spaces
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "My purpose in this life is to chronicle the events of our time, to shine a light on events and actions that damage us all, to reveal good works whenever they actually happen, and when possible, to show people places and times where they can make a difference should they choose to get involved. In the ten years I've been at it, I have seen everything: wars and rumors of wars; economic collapse and environmental calamity; state-sanctioned murder and torture and rape; theft, graft, fraud, deception and greed vast and dense enough to bend the light."
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Black Republicans in 2010: Symbolism vs. Practical Politics
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "In the wake the election of President Obama a number of analysts and pundits have been calling the 2010 midterm elections the 'year of the black Republican.' According to The New York Times, '... at least 32 African-Americans are running for Congress this year as Republicans,' and they 'Ö are running with a confidence they have never had before.'"
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Supreme Court: Washington Can Release Names of Ballot Signers
Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspapers: "A near unanimous Supreme Court today ruled Washington state can release the names of the roughly 138,000 people who signed ballot petitions to overturn a same-sex domestic partnership law."
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Gulf Oil Spill: Pensacola Beach Covered in Tar Balls
Patrick Jonsson, The Christian Science Monitor: "Along at least eight miles of this part of the Florida coast, tar balls from the Gulf oil spill washed ashore Tuesday night. 'My friends went swimming last night and came out covered in oil,' says Heidi Grace, a visitor from New Orleans. 'I cried. It's heartbreaking.'"
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US Social Forum Kicks Off With Domestic Workers Coming Out of the Shadows
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "Joycelyn Gill-Campbell did everything her duty as a housekeeper and nanny for her employers, a couple and their one child in New York, demanded. She wore the traditional white maid's uniform. She walked the dog, in the white uniform."
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Gen. David Petraeus Nod Reopens Issue of Withdrawal Deadline
Gail Russell Chaddock, The Christian Science Monitor: "In a rare show of support from both sides of the aisle, lawmakers today backed President Obamaís decision to remove Gen. Stanley McChrystal as top US commander in Afghanistan - and predicted a swift confirmation of Gen. David Petraeus to replace him."
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John Feffer | BP and Sado-Messochism
John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus: "Have the messes we've been making finally reached a point where they can't be cleaned up? Aside from the occasional asteroid and volcanic outburst, human beings are responsible for the greatest messes on the planet. We've polluted the air and water, punched holes in the ozone, and pumped enough carbon into the atmosphere to overwhelm the global thermostat."
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News in Brief: June the Deadliest Month for Soldiers in Afghanistan, and More ...
June is deadliest month for NATO soldiers fighting in Afghanistan; BP moves forward with potentially risky plans off the coast of Alaska; Venezuela to nationalize fleet of oil rigs belonging to US company; new report shows Americans pay more and receive less for health care than citizens of six other first world countries; Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders reintroduces a bill that would restore the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans.
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"Americans Don't Flinch" - They Duck!
Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson, Truthout: "In accepting General McChrystal's resignation, President Obama said that McChrystal's departure represented a change in personnel, not a change in policy. 'Americans don't flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tasks.' he stated, 'We persist and we persevere.'"
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California Headed for Another Showdown Over Greenhouse Gases
Daniel B. Wood, The Christian Science Monitor: "California is headed for another showdown over greenhouse gases. A citizen's ballot initiative approved Tuesday could suspend AB32, the state's landmark 2006 law mandating a 25 percent reduction in industrial greenhouse gases by 2020."
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Tom Engelhardt | America Detached From War
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "Admittedly, before George W. Bush had his fever dream, the U.S. had already put its first unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drone surveillance planes in the skies over Kosovo in the late 1990s. By November 2001, it had armed them with missiles and was flying them over Afghanistan."
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Stone's "Border" Shows Fall of South America's Berlin Wall
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "On April 13, 2002, an event occurred in Venezuela which was as world historical for South America as the fall of the Berlin Wall was for Eastern Europe: a US-backed coup against the democratically-elected government of Venezuela collapsed. The Bush administration's efforts to promote the coup failed in the face of popular resistance in Venezuela and diplomatic resistance in the region."
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White House Likely to Sue Over Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
Erin Rosa, The Media Consortium: "Hope for a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year has fallen by the wayside, but the Obama administration is rallying for one last hurrah before mid-term elections in November. Late last week, the White House unofficially announced plans to sue the state of Arizona over the now notorious Senate Bill 1070, a state law passed this year to crackdown on undocumented immigrants."
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"Thinking About Ourselves and Our Future": Rural Haitian Women Organize
Beverly Bell, Truthout: "'If we rural women can organize ourselves together to form a bloc, we could accomplish a lot of things,' says Yvette Michaud, founder of the National Coordinating Committee of Peasant Women (KONAFAP by its Creole acronym). The committee is a first-ever effort to unite, on a national basis, the voices and interests of this large and excluded sector of the population."
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People Without Homes, Homes Without People
Brooke Jarvis, YES! Magazine: "Three years ago at the first US Social Forum in Atlanta, residents of cities around the country met and found they shared a common goal: Make sure that city life stays accessible to everyone. They formed the Right to the City Alliance, a coalition uniting urban rights groups to allies in their own cities and across the country, from Los Angeles to Boston to New Orleans."
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