Monday, August 9, 2010

Truthout 8/9

Dahr Jamail | Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Even When It's Not Out of Sight)
Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, Dahr Jamail's Dispatches: "Since BP announced that CEO Tony Hayward would receive a multi-million dollar golden parachute and be replaced by Bob Dudley, we have witnessed an incredibly broad, and powerful, propaganda campaign. A campaign that peaked this week with the US government, clearly acting in BP's best interests, itself announcing, via outlets willing to allow themselves to be used to transfer the propaganda, like the New York Times, this message: 'The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated - and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.'"
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Robert Reich | Greenspan, Rubin and Herbert Hoover 
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Herbert Hoover's disciples are making noises even as America moves closer towards a double dip recession. Fed Chair Alan Greenspan tells the New York Times all the Bush tax cuts should expire as scheduled, even those that benefit the middle class and not the rich. His reason: the nation's looming deficit requires it."
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Afghanistan: In Search of the True Civilian Toll
Jean MacKenzie and Aziz Ahmad Shafe, GlobalPost: "The issue of civilian casualties has once again assumed center stage in Afghanistan. The number of civilian war deaths rose 6 percent in the first seven months of 2010 when compared to the same period last year, according to reports released over the weekend. Meanwhile, the bodies of 10 members of a medical team were flown to Kabul on Sunday from where they were gunned down last week in the northern province of Badakhshan."
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News in Brief: $30 Billion US-Saudi Arms Deal in Progress; Minors Get Deportation Reprieve, and More ...
US poised to seal ten-year arms deal with Saudi Arabia; Guantanamo detainee trial starts this week; Taliban stretches into Northern Afghanistan; minors get deportation reprieve; BP says 'static kill' a success; Germany shuts down mosque linked to terrorists.
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In Flood-Ravaged Pakistan, Army Gains Stature Over Government 
Saeed Shah, McClatchy Newspapers: "The Pakistani government's poor response to the worst floods in the country's history has damaged its fragile democracy, while the powerful military establishment has gained stature with its emergency relief work, analysts said."
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Socialism in America
Stephen Eric Bronner, Truthout: "Socialism had a checkered career in the United States. Its partisans never had a meaningful chance at gaining power. Around the turn of the 20th century, during the 1930s, and then again during the 1960s, however, they did influence the intellectual climate and the formation of various policy options. That influence grew weaker in the aftermath of the 1960s."
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Remarks in Support of Whistleblower Private Manning
Ray McGovern, Truthout: "We are living in a liminal time, that is to say, we live on the threshold. So much that we have taken for granted is passing. In times like this, we must be careful to keep our bearings, lest we come to love the chaos that passes for reality. This is why we need to honor our brother Bradley Manning. He was not afraid to face the unknown; not afraid to resist the seduction of conformity; not afraid to follow his conscience; AND not afraid to give us the wherewithal to distinguish truth from lies so that we, too, can follow our conscience."
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A Break in Israeli-Turkish Relations
Avni Dogru, Foreign Policy in Focus: "UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recently announced that, after two months of negotiations, Israel has agreed to an international inquiry on the May 31 deadly flotilla assault. International pressure and Ban Ki-moon's personal efforts played an important role in the Netanyahu government's unprecedented decision. Israel's concession meets one of the demands made by Turkey, which lost nine citizens in the assault and which has threatened to break off relations with what had once been a key military ally."
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New York Ends Prison Gerrymandering
Michelle Chen, Color Lines: "You've heard the shrill debate about shredding the 14th amendment and redefining citizenship, mostly driven by reactionaries who are willing to gut the Constitution in order to exclude immigrants. To understand just how radical such a change would be, look at new legislation in New York that shows how the constitutional concept of citizenship and representation has enabled the enfranchisement of marginalized groups across three centuries of U.S. history."
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The Struggle Behind the Scenes Over Health Care Reform (Video)
Anne Landman, Center for Media and Democracy: "CMD's Senior Fellow on Health Care, Wendell Potter, spoke at the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles about the ongoing struggle over the implementation of the new health care legislation. Coverage of the new law has been minimal lately, pushed off the front pages by the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but a lot has been going on behind the scenes. Even though Congress passed, and the president signed the new healthcare legislation, we still don't know how it's going to be implemented, because the legislation only lays out Congressional intent."
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Camillo "Mac" Bica | Coming Home
Camillo "Mac" Bica, Truthout: "From Warrior to Warrior: Now that you have returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan and the killing and dying has ended, I wish I could tell you that your hell is over, that time will heal all wounds, even those of the mind and the spirit. I would like to give you hope that the nightmares and the memories of the horror will eventually fade and your life will be as it was before. But to do so, I believe, would be to continue the lie that has victimized you and so many others."
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