Pages: << 1 ... 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 ... 1311 >>
America's Teacher
Naomi Klein
On September 17, in the midst of the publicity blitz for his cinematic takedown of the capitalist order, Moore talked with Nation columnist Naomi Klein by phone about the film, the roots of our economic crisis and the promise and peril of the present political moment. To listen to a podcast of the full conversation, click here. Following is an edited transcript of their conversation. -The Editors
400 years from now: "Look at these people back then. They thought they were free. They called themselves a democracy, but they spent ten hours of every day in a totalitarian situation and they allowed the richest 1 percent to have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined."
Naomi Klein: So, the film is wonderful. Congratulations. It is, as many people have already heard, an unapologetic call for a revolt against capitalist madness. But the week it premiered, a very different kind of revolt was in the news: the so-called tea parties, seemingly a passionate defense of capitalism and against social programs.
Meanwhile, we are not seeing too many signs of the hordes storming Wall Street. Personally, I'm hoping that your film is going to be the wake-up call and the catalyst for all of that changing. But I'm just wondering how you're coping with this odd turn of events, these revolts for capitalism led by Glenn Beck.
The Torture Memos: The Case Against the Lawyers
David Cole
1. On Monday, August 24, as President Obama began his vacation on Martha's Vineyard, his administration released a previously classified 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general that strongly criticized the techniques employed to interrogate "high-value" al-Qaeda suspects at the CIA's secret prisons.[1] The report revealed that CIA agents and contractors, in addition to using such "authorized" and previously reported tactics as waterboarding, wall-slamming, forced nudity, stress positions, and extended sleep deprivation, also employed a variety of "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane and undocumented" methods. These included threatening suspects with a revolver and a power drill; repeatedly applying pressure to a detainee's carotid artery until he began to pass out; staging a mock execution; threatening to sexually abuse a suspect's mother; and warning a detainee that if another attack occurred in the United States, "We're going to kill your children."
The Recession is Over! Now get off your lazy asses and spend some MONEY, dammit!
by Daniel Patrick Welch
These recessions are getting shorter and shorter. If you delay admitting it's happening until the shit really hits the fan, then claim it's all better while the shit is still spraying all over you, eventually it will become a complete non-event, like the ho-hum 'discouraged workers' who keep pushing those jobless claims down. Good going, guys! Way to take one for the statistical team!
The other intriguing development about the "modern" recovery is that it miraculously continues to be a "recovery" without some previously indispensable component. Under Clinton and Bush, we were introduced to the "jobless" recovery. Now, with foreclosures yet to peak and record upside down mortgages still to blow, we are apparently being fed the "homeless recovery." See? With each recovery, we can begin to see past those boring necessities that clouded our vision in the past. With joblessness and homelessness becoming old hat, I can't wait for what's next--maybe a foodless recovery or an airless recover--for future administrations to bestow on us.
Khalid Amayreh Interview: "the mental landscape of every Palestinian man, woman and child is overwhelmed with the Israeli nightmare"
By Mary Rizzo
Mary Rizzo, Khalid Amayreh, Palestinian family in Gaza
Those who seek information about Palestine often tend to be attracted to particular writers and journalists for the special insights and gifts that seem to be uniquely their own. “The Middle East Crisis” is an issue having a profound, complex and multi-faceted dimension of interpretation, that for however long there has been a crisis (and worse), and despite the great abundance of written material available, more than we can ever realistically confront, the reader is driven to seek the voices that can analyse any aspect of the situation clearly. There really are far fewer with this talent than one would expect. The characteristic of this type of writer is that there is a distinctive voice or style, and more than that, there is a strong sense that the coherent and authentic ethics of this person are part of the message. It is not just reporting facts and intelligent analysis, but creating within us a consciousness of the moral situation that underlies the events. Khalid Amayreh is one such “source”. He is a very prolific author, and he is often able to correctly analyse the event of the day and place it into its overall context. This makes his work almost a diary of Palestinian events. However, as useful as it would be if he limited himself to reporting, Khalid Amayreh is far more important as a writer. He is concerned with the human condition and knows that the reader should not be left only with a cold reportage, because that would be telling only half of the story, and the less important half at that. His voice is the one speaking to the human heart, to the reader who sees the oppression that Palestinians are living under, and is mystified at they are no nearer to the end of their suffering. Khalid does not talk about “indiscriminate masses”, his work is almost a passion play, where there are names, identities, human stories behind all of the events narrated. In this interview for Palestine Think Tank, he touches on many issues in his intimitable way.
Police State Raids Against Immigrants
by Stephen Lendman
In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established its largest investigative and enforcement branch - the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm (ICE) "as a law enforcement agency for the post-9/11 era, to integrate enforcement authorities against criminal and terrorist activities, including the fights against human trafficking and smuggling violent transnational gangs and sexual predators on children (who are) criminal (and) terrorist" threats to the nation.
Along with Muslims, Latinos are its prime targets, often using militarized unconstitutional tactics against vulnerable, defenseless people. Post-9/11, the Bush administration initiated them, and they continue under Obama.
On May 23, 2007, as a senator, Obama said:
"The time to fix our broken immigration system is now. We need stronger enforcement on the border and at the workplace."
A challenge to the aspiring reformers of the Journalism Profession
Zahir Ebrahim
To what extent do some or many of the following points reflect the state of the press today? In reading the following excerpt from the well known 100 year old document – deemed to be a forgery by many, and blueprint for world conquest by many more – and assuming it merely be an anonymous work of profound literature, of entertaining fiction, or a frightening discourse in political science, its diabolical prescience to reflect what has come to pass in the worldwide press today is incredibly shocking. As in Machiavelli's The Prince, the diabolical mechanisms proposed therein to manufacture and control public opinion to serve the interests of a despotic oligarchy bears close study.
The very word “freedom” has been circumscribed in this despotic system from what is deemed “unalienable”, to what is ordained “legal”. And it becomes pertinent to ask the question: Is that state of affairs reflected in the tortuous reality of today? As the text asserts: “all freedom will thus be in our hands, since the laws will abolish or create only that which is desirable for us according to the aforesaid program.”
Obama Folds a Royal Flush: Israel Wins, Palestine Suffers
Alan Sabrosky
Obama needs to be seen as more than a crashing disappointment.
One rarely sees someone sit at a card table holding a Royal Flush with most of the game’s chips in front of him, and fold his hand. But that is precisely what Obama did with Netanyahu on the settlements issue, which was absolutely a litmus test of what he would do to Israel to force a solution, and of what the Palestinians could expect from him.
The answer in both instances is “nothing.” So the Israelis have no reason whatsoever to give more than lip service to anything Obama says or wants in the future, and the Palestinians have no reason whatsoever to trust him to help them improve their lot, much less protect them from periodic Israeli depredations.
The Economy is a Lie, too
Paul Craig Roberts
Americans cannot get any truth out of their government about anything, the economy included. Americans are being driven into the ground economically, with one million school children now homeless, while Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke announces that the recession is over.
The spin that masquerades as news is becoming more delusional. Consumer spending is 70% of the US economy. It is the driving force, and it has been shut down. Except for the super rich, there has been no growth in consumer incomes in the 21st century. Statistician John Williams of shadowstats.com reports that real household income has never recovered its pre-2001 peak.
The US economy has been kept going by substituting growth in consumer debt for growth in consumer income. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan encouraged consumer debt with low interest rates. The low interest rates pushed up home prices, enabling Americans to refinance their homes and spend the equity. Credit cards were maxed out in expectations of rising real estate and equity values to pay the accumulated debt. The binge was halted when the real estate and equity bubbles burst.
The Practice of Domination in Everyday Life
Robert Hariman
A settler tosses wine at a Palestinian woman on Shuhada Street in Hebron. The
approach of some settlers towards neighboring Palestinians, especially around
Nablus in the north and Hebron in the south, has often been one of contempt and
violence. (Photo: Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times)
Amidst the many images of hostility, conflict, and destruction that come out of the occupied territories in Palestine, this one is truly shocking.
The photo appeared on page A8 of the morning edition of the New York Times with this caption:
“Tinderbox In Hebron, a Jewish settler threw wine at a Palestinian woman. The city is a center of tensions between settlers and Palestinians.”
The complete set of images, which included a photo on page 1 of an Israeli child being bathed and three other photos on page 8 labeled “Veneration,” “Remembrance,” and “Preparation,” clearly favored the Israeli settlers. Even so, the photo above gives the lie to the myth of taming the frontier in the Holy Land.
But why does it shock? He is not hitting her, and surely spraying her is less of a crime than, say, razing a house with a military bulldozer. Or blowing up a bus with a suicide bomber. Since there is violence enough on both sides, why make so much of a minor incident of teenage insolence?
The Bankrupted Morals of the U.S. Government! Demonstrators are Still Domestic Terrorist - Another Obama Promise Broken!
Sherrie Wilcox
Where are the morals of this U.S. government? Why don't people see, there is hardly one campaign promise Obama made to get himself elected, being kept now.
Another very important promise Obama made to the people is now being disgarded by the way side and Bushes policy will be kept enforce.
The administration is keeping the policy of detaining and holding whoever they want without charges and for how ever long they want to! Obama will not seek a change!
<< 1 ... 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 ... 1311 >>
| Voices |  |
