Monday, June 7, 2010

Truthout 6/7

Jason Leopold | Human Experimentation at the Heart of Bush Administration's Torture Program
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "High-value detainees captured during the Bush administration's 'war on terror' who were subjected to brutal torture techniques were part of a Nazi Germany-type program involving illegal human experimentation, the purpose of which was to collect research 'data,' according to a disturbing new report that calls on President Barack Obama, Congress, and other government agencies to immediately launch inquiries and Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the allegations."
Read the Article

Helen Thomas, Under Siege About Israel Comments, Retires
Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers: "Helen Thomas, the longest serving White House correspondent, retired Monday after comments she made about Israel over the weekend drew condemnation from both the White House and the White House Correspondents Association."
Read the Article

Reproductive Health Concerns in the Aftermath of the Gulf Oil Disaster
Lucinda Marshall, Truthout: "Imagine that you are a woman living on or near the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps, you are pregnant or hope to be soon. And, perhaps, your partner is one of the fishermen who has been helping to clean up from the BP oil disaster. He comes home at night coughing and barely able to breath and his skin is irritated from contact with the oil."
Read the Article

Chris Hedges | The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger
Chris Hedges, Truthout: "Tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement known as the Christian right, have begun to dismantle the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They are creating a theocratic state based on 'biblical law,' and shutting out all those they define as the enemy. This movement, veering closer and closer to traditional fascism, seeks to force a recalcitrant world to submit before an imperial America. It champions the eradication of social deviants, beginning with homosexuals, and moving on to immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims and those they dismiss as 'nominal Christians' - meaning Christians who do not embrace their perverted and heretical interpretation of the Bible. Those who defy the mass movement are condemned as posing a threat to the health and hygiene of the country and the family. All will be purged."
Read the Article

Groups Around the US Join Haitian Farmers in Protesting "Donation" of Monsanto Seeds
Beverly Bell, Truthout: "'We're for seeds that have never been touched by multinationals. In our advocacy, we say that seeds are the patrimony of humanity. No one can control them,' said Doudou Pierre, national coordinating committee member of the National Haitian Network for Food Sovereignty and Food Security (RENHASSA), in a recent interview. 'We reject Monsanto and their GMOs. GMOs would be the extermination of our people.'"
Read the Article

James Howard Kunstler | Which Horizon?
James Howard Kunstler, Truthout: "Did the nation heave a sigh of relief when BP announced that their latest gambit to 'cap' the Deepwater Horizon gusher will result in hosing up fifty percent of the leaking oil? If so, the nation may be sighing too soon since the other half of the oil will still collect in underwater plumes and hover all around the Gulf Coast like those baleful mother ships in the most recent generation of alien invasion movies. I shudder to imagine the tonnage of dead wildlife flotsam that will wash up with the tide for years to come. It will seem like a 'necklace of death' for several states, though even that may not be enough to distract them from the more gratifying raptures of Nascar and NFL football."
Read the Article

Dean Baker | Overcoming the Debt Trap
Dean Baker, Truthout: "The deficit hawk gang is again trying to take our children hostage with new threats of enormous debt burdens. As in the past, most of what they claim is very misleading, if not outright false."
Read the Article

News in Brief: Guantanamo Cost $500 Million and More ...
The first public accounting of Guantanamo costs is released; the Israeli Navy kills four Palestinians off the Gaza coast, as the US searches for "new ways" to deal with the Gaza impasse; India sentences former plant employees to jail time for "world's worst industrial accident"; and the International Criminal Court moves toward new rules that would allow nations that invade others to be prosecuted.
Read the Article

If There Was Ever a Moment to Seize
Bill McKibben, TomDispatch: "Here's the president on March 31st, announcing his plan to lift a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling: 'Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.'"
Read the Article

Showdown in Arizona: Obama Must Pursue Immigration Reform
Howard Fineman: "If there's one number that should matter most to politicians right now - in Washington, in Arizona - it's 83. That is the percentage of young Hispanic voters who, according to a new Democracia USA survey, worry about being discriminated against. Why so crucial? It's impossible to overstate Hispanic political power: for each of the next 20 years (and in each of the last 10), a half million Latino citizens will turn 18 - voting age. By midcentury, census data show, Hispanics will be the country's largest ethnic group. By the end of the century, they'll be the majority."
Read the Article

Who's Afraid of Turkey? Its Next Move May Favor the West
Soner Cagaptay: "Turkey is starting to scare Americans, for good reason. There was the high-profile clash at Davos over the Palestinians, fraying Turkish ties to Israel. Then came the surprise uranium deal with Tehran, undermining Western pressure on Iran to come clean about its nuclear program. Now there's a new clash with Israel over Turkish support for the convoys challenging Israel's embargo on Gaza. But just as Turkey is starting to look more assertively pro-Islamist than ever, there are signs that a big internal shift may reshape Turkish politics and redirect its foreign policy back toward the West."
Read the Article

What the Spill Will Kill
Sharon Begley: "Giant plumes of crude oil mixed with methane are sweeping the ocean depths with devastating consequences. 'I'm not too worried about oil on the surface,' says one scientist. 'It's the things we don't see that worry me the most.'"
Read the Article<

Don't Ask. Tell: Why the Military Should Soldier on With Repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"
Charles McLean and P.W. Singer: "Every gay-pride parade seems to have its share of sailor suits, aviator sunglasses, and camouflage trousers. In the U.S., such costumes are often drawn from the Halloween bin, since gays cannot serve openly in the military, let alone march for pride in their official uniforms. But that's not the case in Britain, where gay members of the Royal Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines not only march but also move their partners into the military's family housing. The armed forces has also embraced the shift - which came following a European Court of Human Rights ruling 1999 - placing recruitment ads in gay publications, and, last summer, featuring an openly gay soldier on the cover of the military's official magazine."
Read the Article

No comments:

Post a Comment


What do you think it symbolizes?