Tuesday 10 January 2012

Mike Lofgren | Have the Super-Rich Seceded From the United States?
Mike Lofgren, Truthout: "There have been hundreds of books about globalization and how it would break down borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state."
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In New Hampshire, Occupiers Live Free or "Die-In"
J.A. Myerson, Truthout: "'Live free or die,' the man instructed, and they all promptly died. This was Monday's 'Die-in,' an Occupy New Hampshire event in the parking lot of the campaign headquarters of President Barack Obama. The death certificate lists the name of deceased as 'democracy, freedom, liberty and the 99%.' Cause: 'The influence of Wall Street money.'"
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Romney Retains Big Lead as New Hampshire Prepares to Vote Tuesday
David Lightman and Steven Thomma, McClatchy: "The race for the Republican presidential nomination has two tiers in this state, which votes Tuesday in the first 2012 primary. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, can take a giant step forward with a big win here, while his five major challengers are vying for the mantle of chief Romney opponent."
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Ten Years of Guantanamo: One of the Prison's First Detainees Breaks His Silence
Jason Leopold, Truthout: "Last year, one of the first detainees sent to Guantanamo when the prison facility opened in January 2002, broke his silence and spoke to Truthout about the brutal physical and psychological torture he suffered during the five years he was imprisoned."
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Danger Waters: The Three Top Hot Spots of Potential Conflict in the Geo-Energy Era
Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch: "Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy 'chokepoint' could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk. With energy demand on the rise and sources of supply dwindling, we are, in fact, entering a new epoch - the Geo-Energy Era - in which disputes over vital resources will dominate world affairs."
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Guantanamo: Ten Years Too Many
Peter Weiss, Truthout: "Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) was the first legal organization to perceive the danger which the legal culture of Gitmo posed to the idea of justice and to take on cases on behalf of detainees.... About 600 detainees have been released and sent to their home countries or other countries willing to accept them, partly as a result of CCR attorneys scouring the world for such countries."
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How US Policies Fueled Mexico's Great Migration
David Bacon, The Nation: "Roberto Ortega tried to make a living slaughtering pigs in Veracruz, Mexico.... In the late 1990s, after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) opened up Mexican markets to massive pork imports from US companies like Smithfield Foods, Ortega and other small-scale butchers in Mexico were devastated by the drop in prices."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Move Over Greece - Italy Is the New, Biggest Thorn in the Euro Zone
In today's On the News segment: The Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling yesterday banning foreign nationals from meddling in our elections; White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley is out - after less than a year on the job; move over Greece - Italy is the new, biggest thorn in the euro zone; this week, the nation will mark the tenth anniversary of our so-called terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay; proponents of Internet censorship and The Stop Online Piracy Act - also known as SOPA - got hit with a setback yesterday; and more ...
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Justice Department Finally Cuffs Sheriff Joe, but Not the Policy That Made Him
Julianne Hing, Colorlines.com: "Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed 'toughest sheriff in America,' will cooperate with the federal government's demands to clean up his department after a three-year investigation found rampant racial profiling and widespread discriminatory policing under his watch. But he's not doing it without issuing a few demands of his own."
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Paul Krugman | Deciphering Japan's "Safe Haven" Status
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "Japan is seen as safe, despite its high level of debt, just like all the other advanced countries that have retained their own currencies. But there's a special feature of Japan that is important in understanding the high yen: the interaction between deflation and the zero lower bound."
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Women in Media - They're Not Only Missing From Comics
Anne Elizabeth Moore and Mickey Zacchilli, Truthout: "Comics are a form of communication reinvented by each new creator, maybe in each new strip. A medium that constantly reinvents itself? That's only about a hundred years old? How could it possibly adhere to age-old notions of gender traditionalism? Pretty well, as we've seen. Which makes statistics for women working in other media - like this one, the first of a pair by Mickey Zacchilli - that much more profound."
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When Diplomacy With Iran Was Not Only Legal, but Painless
Russ Wellen, Foreign Policy in Focus: "The US House of Representatives recently voted to pass - with only six nays - the Iran Threat Reduction Act of 2011. At the Hill's Congress Blog, Jamir Abdi explains that (as you may have heard) it contains 'a provision - inserted without debate in committee after garnering the majority of its cosponsors - that would outlaw contact between US government employees and certain Iranian officials.'"
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*TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES*

What you know could hurt you has become a reality in New Hampshire public education.

We are not kidding.

In what is now a law in the Granite State, through a veto override last week, parents can object to any part of a public school curriculum and have it replaced for their child. Perhaps born of a Tea Party nod to home schooling, it's really an attempt to turn public education into anarchy.

According to the Huffington Post:

Gov. John Lynch (D) vetoed the measure in July, saying the bill would harm education quality and give parents control over lesson plans.

"For example, under this bill, parents could object to a teacher's plan to: teach the history of France or the history of the civil or women's rights movements," Lynch wrote in his veto message. "Under this bill, a parent could find 'objectionable' how a teacher instructs on the basics of algebra. In each of those cases, the school district would have to develop an alternative educational plan for the student...."

Under the terms of the bill, which was sponsored by state Rep. J.R. Hoell (R-Dunbarton), a parent could object to any curriculum or course material in the classroom ... The parent would be responsible for paying the cost of developing the new curriculum. The bill also allows for the parent's name and reason for objection to be sealed by the state.

Not only does the new law create an administrative nightmare and perhaps insurmountable obstacles to teaching coherent lesson plans, it is a direct assault on the concept of a shared base of knowledge, passed from one generation to the next.

As with charter schools and vouchers, the New Hampshire legislator is trying to further weaken the public education system, in fact to the point of making it dysfunctional.

The arch conservative Manchester (New Hampshire) Union-Leader editorial board calls this radical, right-wing law "neither workable, nor sensible."

America was built and prospered on the notion that primary and high school students benefit from community-based educational systems. In New Hampshire, they just shot an arrow through the heart of that idea, which has been integral to our national greatness.

Mark Karlin,
Editor BuzzFlash at Truthout

MSNBC Should Finally Drop Kick "Brown Shirt" Pat Buchanan Over the Goal Posts and Into Oblivion
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

GOP Plan: No High School Diploma? No Unemployment Check
Read the Article at MSNBC

Corporations Hate Taxes, So They Let the Children Pay
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Soldiers With Automatic Weapons Checking IDs at a Social Security Office in Florida
Read the Article at War Is A Crime

Full-Blown Civil War Erupts on Wall Street - Financial Elite Start Turning on Each Other
Read the Article at Wake Up World

Democrats Love Gingrich for His Bain Capital Attacks on Romney
Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

About That Montana Supreme Court Decision and Citizens United ...
Read the Article at ThinkProgress

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