Sexual Assault Coverage by Media Shows Double Standard, Paternalism, and Sexism
by Walter Brasch, March 2011
'Logan, according to an official CBS announcement, was attacked by a group of about 200 Egyptians and "suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers." The mob, probably pro-Mubarak supporters, but never identified by CBS—had separated Logan from her camera crew.'
"Democracy," Egyptian Style
by Sam Vaknin, March 2011
'The West boasts of the three waves of democratization that swept across the world since 1975. Yet, in most developing countries and nations in transition, "democracy" is an empty word. Granted, the hallmarks of democracy are there: candidate lists, parties, election propaganda, a plurality of media, and voting. But its quiddity is absent.'
A Zoo Of Our Own Making: We will kill for empire and a parking space
a video-kvetch by Phil Rockstroh and Angela Tyler-Rockstroh, March 2011
"The fraying ligature of the landscape of the United States reveals an inner geography of alienation and anomie. Living on the island of Manhattan, I daily negotiate an urban layout of practical, but identity-decimating grids—a cityscape of harsh, inhuman right angles ... a geography that renders street encounters abrupt, curt and intrusive."
The War: Did We Sacrifice a Million Lives and $Trillion Cash Just to Hand Our Jobs to China?
by Nicholas C. Arguimbau, March 2011
"I think you'll agree if you read on that there has been one hands-down winner in this war: a winner of almost every battle, and that is China. We shall see that China is working very hard at cornering the world oil market, and that the United States military, with some encouragement from the oil industry, has assisted China along its way immensely."
Olbermann's Sacking Shifts US Media Further Right
by Stephen Lendman, February 2011
"Think Progress asked: "Why would Comcast be interested in silencing progressive voices?" Because it opposes issues they support, including Net Neutrality, stiffer media regulation, and restraints on being able to buy telecommunications and media companies freely."
Gabrielle Giffords: Casualty of the Second Civil War
by Bill Noxid, February 2011
"You will find every single ignorant, racist, lie that has been regurgitated at any Tea Party rally, Confederate / White Supremacist website, or come out of a Republican's mouth — at some point — came out of the disinformation network of Palin, Hannity, Beck, Savage, Levin, Limbaugh, etc. first. As you can plainly see, these people have been given plenty of reasons to believe the only way out of their fabricated oppression is violent overthrow of the Government."
The Politics of Hate and Hate Speech
by Walter Brasch, February 2011
"We know the shooter used a Glock 19 9-mm. semi-automatic weapon, with a 33-bullet magazine, which he purchased legally. We know that Congress did not renew the assault weapons ban, which allowed civilians to own pistols but with only a 10-bullet magazine capacity. And, we also know that sales of Glock pistols following the murders, in a nation steeped in a gun culture, increased by 60 percent in Arizona and 5 percent nationally"
Enough of the Myth of American Morality -- Awakening the Global Slave
by Bill Noxid, January 2011
"All over the world in all of the colonized countries we have Blacks fighting Blacks for no apparent reason, Kings driving Bentleys while their people have no food, and guns and bullets for everyone, yet none of them have any shoes. All the while the corporate slavers quietly steal the resources and labor as they fund all sides of the conflicts, and these two simple paragraphs from John Wesley explain why that is."
Part Tinker Bell, Part Predator Drone: The Fantasy of the Presidency as Deus ex Machina
by Phil Rockstroh, January 2011
"Barack Obama's transformation from progressive hope-monger to status quo water-carrier should not come as a shock. It would be nearly impossible for the US populace, chief executives included, not to have internalized the tenets of the corporate capitalist/consumer empire. This corporate structure is as pervasive internally as it is extant. It exists as both outer architecture and inner psychological imprinting."
Beantown, USA: The Slow Progress of Theoretical Diversity
by Kindra J. Ferriabough, January 2011
"What you will rarely find in Boston though is even medium-scale social integration between any one of these groups, and this is because of an almost four hundred-year history of handling diversity via war, enslavement, religious persecution, and racial, ethnic and economic segregation."
Leaked Cable: Hike food prices to boost GM crop approval in Europe
by Rudy Ananda, January 2011
'By June 2008, food prices had spiked so severely that "The Economist announced that the real price of food had reached its highest level since 1845, the year the magazine first calculated the number," reports Fred Kaufman in The Food Bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it.'
Efficiency and Jobs
by Jason G. Brent, January 2011
"Almost everyone concerned with the future of humanity and concerned about the usage of the resources the earth can provide to humanity in the future assumes that environmentalism and technology will reduce the resources used by humanity in the future. They are just plain wrong. Environmentalism and technology will not cause a reduction in resource usage. In fact, it is highly likely that every technological advance will cause an increase in the usage of resources."
Population Overshoot Is Determined by Food Overproduction
by Steve Salmony, October 2010
'The most formidable threat to future human well being and environmental health appears to be caused by the unbridled, corporate overproduction of food on the one hand and the abject failure of the leaders of the human community to insist upon more fair and equitable redistribution of the world's food supply so that "all people enjoy food security."'
Lieberman's "Truth"
by Yacov Ben Efrat, October 2010
"Asked whether his speech at the UN General Assembly (September 28, 2010) expressed the position of his government or rather the platform of his political party, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman answered: "The speech expressed the truth." Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made no objection to the content, limiting himself to a statement, via his bureau, that the speech was not coordinated with him."
Economic Inequity, Manufactured Populism, and the Bigot-Whisperers of the Right
by Phil Rockstroh, October 2010
"In a similar manner, manufactured controversies such as the gay marriage and gays in the military dust-ups of the present time have little to do with gays nor marriage nor the military. These issues are served as red meat to arouse the passions—and loosen the purse strings—of the fear-driven, status quo-enabling, confused souls residing at the center of the black spleen of the Republican ideological base."
A Film Too Far: The Battle of the Strait of Hormuz
Jim Chaffee reviews the movie, October 2010
"Finally Hollywood has made the definitive war epoch of our time. A film that puts into proper perspective the US role as a military superpower in the late 20th century. More, it presages the US mission as peacekeeper and maintainer of order in the 21st century. We refer to the heroic actions of the US Navy in the Persian Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz, on 3 July 1988."
Meditations on Hip-Hop: On Disposability, Death, and Destiny
by Tolu Olorunda, October 2010
"How, for instance, could rappers recklessly resurrect Minstrel themes of old, without a piece of protest from a public that likes to think of itself intelligent enough to erect ever-higher standards for the many annual Rap aspirants eager to be accepted as authentic and legitimate—"real"—representatives of Hip-Hop music and culture?"
The Ekonomics of Fantasyland
by Jim Chaffee, reprinted July 2010
'This wholesale creation of money out of thin air is the basis for Ronald Reagan's famous supply side economics, by which the rising tide raises all boats. But as David Hume might have remarked given his view on printing money, "Aye laddie, but the rising prices have swamped any trickle down to the wee folk, who are drowning in them." He would have been right, and the ensuing inflation can be seen as a form of clandestine taxation of the most recessive variety.'
Crushing Exploitation of the European People - But for How Long?
by Garda Ghista, July 2010
"In mid-May, 2010, European leaders met with International Monetary Fund (IMF) leaders and finally reached an agreement comprising a £750 billion rescue package for the euro. Since then, announcements have taken place every single day regarding ruthless, merciless new austerity measures which the common people of Europe will have to now face. Workers and non-workers alike will be paying heavily for the financial games of the bankers and speculators."
Guide to Ending the Siege in Gaza
by Yacov Ben Efrat, July 2010
'Israel has become a convenient punch-bag. The world is sick of the checkpoint photos, the separation "fence" and the Gaza blockade. These things do not look good. They bring to mind actions by other despotic regimes which have disappeared from the world stage, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa. The world no longer believes Israel; there is a growing feeling that it is the victim of its own intransigence.'
The Woodrow Wilson Center Desecrates Its Namesake's Legacy and Violates Its Congressional Mandate
by David Boyajian, May 2010
'Wilson enunciated his famous Fourteen Points, based on a just peace, in 1918, before the end of WW I. Point Twelve left no room for doubt: The non-Turkish "nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development." He was referring to Armenians, Arabs, Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds, and others.'
The Arab Sector: Israel's Springboard into the OECD?
by Assaf Adiv, May 2010
"The Israel of today lacks a political or social force that could carry out the revolution needed to integrate the Arabs. Where would such a force come from? From the tycoons, who in the last twenty years have made huge profits from destruction of the welfare state? From the leaders of the major political parties, who cozy up to the new billionaires? (See for instance the newest corruption scandal involving the monstrous Holyland buildings in Jerusalem)."
The Imminent Crash of the Oil Supply: What Is Going to Happen and How It Came to Pass that We Weren't Forewarned
by Nicholas C. Arguimbau, May 2010
'The graph implies that we are past the peak of production and that there are 750 billion barrels of conventional oil left (the areas under the "conventionals" portion of the graph, extrapolated to the right as an exponentional). Assuming that the remaining reserves were 900 billion or more at the halfway point, then we are at least 150 billion barrels, or 5 years, past the midpoint.'
After Peak Oil, Are We Heading Towards Social Collapse?
by Emily Spence, May 2010
'Recently, Glen Sweetnam, director of the International, Economic and Greenhouse Gas division of the Energy Information Administration at the DoE, announced that worldwide oil availability had reached a "plateau". However, his statement was not made known through a major U.S. mainstream media outlet. Instead, it was covered in France's Le Monde.'
Dan Burros: Reason to Believe
by Joel Lewis, May 2010
'Browsing through the Plaza Book Shop in West New York, New Jersey, a title leapt out at me: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF AN AMERICAN-JEWISH NAZI. "Holy crap!" I thought. I had heard of Jews who converted to Christianity. And there were of plenty of Jews, like my family who had changed their names — we went from the Mr. Mxyzptlk—like Lyzzicki to the more manageable Lewis... But to join up with the Nazis....'
American Tea Parties 2010
by Belinda Subraman and Joseph Penton Rose, April 2010
"On Tax Day, April 15, 2010, Belinda Subraman of El Paso, Texas and Joseph Penton Rose of Atlanta, Georgia 'infiltrated' their local Tea Parties, with the hopes of better understanding this sudden organization. We present their observations in video, photographs, and an audio conversation."
Defeat in Victory: The Democrats' Health Care Bill
by Shamus Cooke, April 2010
'The public option grew weaker and weaker as the health care bill evolved. The left Democrats pinned all their hopes on it; they ignored the rest of the health care bill, which slashed Medicare and taxed the "Cadillac" health care plans of union workers, all in the hopes that a miniscule public option would give the lefts some political cover.'
Ghostbusting in Paxil Birth Defect Litigation
by Evelyn Pringle, April 2010
'The assessment found that "at least half, maybe more, of the articles that appear in major journals under the names of the best known people in the field, are ghostwritten when they have to do with pharmaceutical drugs."'
The Phony "Proportionality" Debate
by Lorna Salzman, April 2010
'Israel's response to Hamas rocket fire in the Gaza war caused over one thousand deaths according to Palestinian sources. However, it is not known how many of these supposedly civilian deaths were actually Hamas soldiers. In any case, fewer Israelis were killed in the invasion than Palestinians. As a result, Israel has been accused of using unjustifiable excess force in its response, "disproportionate" to the losses it suffered.'
The Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides: An Inconvenient Truth
by Lucine Kasbarian, April 2010
'The media are also telling us that we should sympathize with Turkey because it feels "humiliated" by accusations of genocide... Do Turkish, Israeli and American officials know what "humiliation" means to the survivors and descendants of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides who experienced debasement and degradation during the genocidal ordeals and are forced to endure denials and demeaning treatment right up to the present day?
Clunker Healthcare Bill Protects Private Insurers Damages Democracy
by Bill Wharton, April 2010
"At nearly 2,500 pages, the bill contains a myriad of loopholes that will allow private insurers to continue nearly all of the immoral practices that have, according to a Harvard University study, resulted in more than 40,000 deaths per year due to treatable conditions. In fact, private insurers will now receive taxpayer funds to subsidize the sale of junk healthcare plans that the group Physicians for a National Health Program estimates will only cover 70% of people's medical needs."
Throwing Our Energy at Impossible Dreams
by P. F. Henshaw, March 2010
"Still, where is the cognitive path? Humanity clearly believes in and is devoting its most concentrated efforts on making its growth machine more efficient, to grow its way out of the earth's ever more severe physical constraints..."
Copenhagen Failed Us. What Do We Do Next?
by Nicholas C. Arguimbau, March 2010
"In short, the silver-tongued Obama flipped the bird to the enormous majority of U.S. voters, who had voted for him because he promised "change;" to the countless young idealists who'd worked for him, to the United Nations and to the overwhelming majority of climate researchers, who said action to reduce GHG emissions was critical."
The Great Oxymoron
by Ronald West, March 2010
"Nobody in the White Academic world knew how to create a Native Studies Program because in fact to postulate a program as such in the western classroom was oxymoron. Hell, they did not even know that."
Night of the Living Dead: The Party of Palin: An Unguided Anabolic Verboid For Reverdy Gliddon and Karl Johnson
by Jim Chaffee, March 2010
'Note that these people are not fiscal conservatives; fiscal conservatism is incompatible with militarism. Militarists spend whatever is necessary to build military dominance to terrify other nations. That a significant portion of this spending is for bluster value is evidenced by the lack of US military success in actual warfare. Consider the fact that when the US went to war in Iraq, its too-few troops were poorly equipped despite the billions spent on "defense."'
Rampaging Climate Deniers' Losing Battle
by Lorna Salzman, January 2010
'But "alternative" views are not necessarily credible or true. In the case of evolution, creationist belief in a deity is an article of faith reached by individuals outside the scientific process that involves peer review and rigorous independent impartial testing before any claim of "truth" or verification can be reached.'
Kevin Cooper: A Victim of American Injustice
by Stephen Lendman, January 2010
'"There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform" the proper tests. It "also impeded and obstructed Cooper's attorneys at every turn as they sought to develop the record." Unreasonable testing conditions were imposed, as well as "refused discovery that should have been available as a matter of course, limited testimony that should not have been limited, and found fact unreasonably, based on truncated and distorted record."'
Legalizing Crime
by Sam Vaknin, January 2010
"Criminal laws pertaining to property have malignantly proliferated and pervaded every economic and private interaction. The result is a bewildering multitude of laws, regulations statutes, and acts.
"The average Babylonian could have memorized and assimilated the Hammurabic Code thirty-seven centuries ago—it was short, simple, and intuitively just."
Resisting an Underlying Moral Vacuum
by Emily Spence, January 2010
"So, even as the "United Nations and Afghan officials have launched an awareness campaign that plans to educate over six million children about the dangers of landmines, which kill and injure over 60 people (more than half being children) in [Afghanistan] alone each month", there is little hope that such programs can be as constructive as originally planned."
What the World Needs to Know about Mordechai Vanunu
by Eileen Fleming, January 2010
"I'm not a traitor. I'm a man with a conscience who did what he did out of a deep belief after much thought and many doubts. But I knew that I had to do it, that I had no choice...somebody had to do it...I contributed my share by making public what the public ought to know and they shut my mouth behind the prison walls."
Report from Cop-enhagen
by David Rovics, December 2009
'A new law was passed in preparation for the climate summit which makes this kind of mass preemptive arrest perfectly legal — all the police need to do is arbitrarily determine that an area is designated as a "riot zone" and then they can arrest whoever they want. Any non-Danes arrested can be held for 40 days (including people who were born in Denmark but are not citizens, a reality for many here that may seem surprising to those in the US reading this).'
