Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Truthout 8/4

How Disney Magic and the Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in the Digital Age
Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock, Truthout: "While the 'empire of consumption' has been around for a long time, American society in the last 30 years has undergone a sea change in the daily lives of children - one marked by a major transition from a culture of innocence and social protection, however imperfect, to a culture of commodification."
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William Rivers Pitt | New Dawn, Old Story
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "In March of 2003, a pretend president launched a war of choice to pretend he was protecting America. The war, called Operation Iraqi Freedom, began under the premise that Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons - which is 1,000,000 pounds - of sarin, VX and mustard gas, 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, uranium from Niger for use in a 'robust' nuclear weapons program, and connections to al Qaeda that led directly to the attacks of September 11. George W. Bush said these things, and the media decided it must be so, and we were off to the races."
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Decision on Landmark Challenge to Proposition 8 Imminent
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Rallies are erupting across the country as a federal judge in San Francisco prepares to announce his decision on the landmark challenge to California's Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that halted same-sex marriages in the state after voter's approved it in November 2008." Continue to visit our homepage for updates on this historic case.
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Senate Democrats Can't Get Votes to Pass Gulf Oil Spill Bill
David Lightman and Erika Bolstad, McClatchy Newspapers: "Despite months of public outrage over the massive BP oil spill, frustrated Democratic Senate leaders abandoned their effort Tuesday to pass spill-related legislation before leaving for their summer recess later this week."
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We're Hot as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Any More
Bill McKibben, Truthout: "I'm a mild-mannered guy, a Methodist Sunday School teacher. Not quick to anger. So what I want to say is: this is fucked up. The time has come to get mad, and then to get busy. For many years, the lobbying fight for climate legislation on Capitol Hill has been led by a collection of the most corporate and moderate environmental groups, outfits like the Environmental Defense Fund."
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Jim Hightower | Fighting Back Against the Banksters
Jim Hightower: "Oh, them wild and naughty bankers! What in the world will those rapacious rapscallions of Wall Street do next? Just recently, we learned from Kenneth Feinberg, the government's special investigator of banker pay, that top executives of 17 financial giants shoveled $1.6 billion in excess compensation to themselves in 2008 - at the very moment their failing banks began to draw billions of bailout dollars from us taxpayers."
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Shareholder Protection Act Stands on Shaky Legs
Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "The House Financial Services Committee approves the Shareholder Protection Act, granting a corporation's shareholders new oversight in the company's political expenditure. The act requires shareholders to approve a corporation's political spending for federal races, a move by House Democrats calculated to mitigate the effects of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission."
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Behind the Media Blockade in the Gulf
Anne McClintock, Truthout: "On July 20, I decided to try to get behind the media blockade of oil clean-up operations at Grand Isle, Louisiana. Grand Isle is the only inhabited island in the Gulf Barrier Islands, and has been under especially tight media blackout for months. I had heard unconfirmed stories that BP clean-up workers were 'burying the oil under the sand,' and I wanted to get behind the scenes myself."
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Kenya Referendum: Voters Cast Ballots, Tensions High
Mike Pflanz, The Christian Science Monitor: "Millions of Kenyans lined up before dawn at polling stations stretching from chilly Nairobi to the semi-desert of Lodwar to cast their ballots in what many here are heralding as a historic day for change."
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Right Is Right, Wrong Is Discretionary
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "In the wake of the House Ethics Committee formerly charging Charles Rangel (D-NY) with thirteen ethics violations, another member of congress is poised to have an ethics trial in the House. It has been reported by numerous sources that Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) will be charged with improperly intervening with Treasury officials to bail out a bank in which her husband owned at least $250,000 in stock and on whose board he once served."
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Obama Warned Israel May Bomb Iran
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Consortium News: "MEMORANDUM FOR: The President, FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), SUBJECT: War With Iran. We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war."
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Tom Tomorrow | This Modern Word
Award-winning cartoonist Tom Tomorrow captures the intensity behind the sensationalistic "scandals of the future."
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A Tax Break Nobody Needs
Gerald E. Scorse, Truthout: "Cutting the federal deficit is a hot topic these days, and some kind of action seems certain. Congress is due to take up taxes for the first time in President Obama's term (including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts), and a report from the president's national debt commission is expected come December. Both bodies should take a hard look at ending a needless tax break; getting rid of it would raise billions and make the tax code a touch fairer in the bargain."
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