Thursday 12 January 2012
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship | Is This Land Made for You and Me - or for the Super-Rich?
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Co.: "'Is this land made for you and me?' A mighty good question. The biggest domestic story of our time is the collapse of the middle class, a sharp increase in the poor, and the huge transfer of wealth to the already rich."
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Why Now? What's Next? Naomi Klein and Yotam Marom in Conversation About Occupy Wall Street
Naomi Klein and Yotam Marom, The Nation: "Naomi Klein: One of the things that's most mysterious about this moment is 'Why now?' People have been fighting austerity measures and calling out abuses by the banks for a couple of years, with basically the same analysis: 'We won't pay for your crisis.' But it just didn't seem to take off, at least in the US."
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Interview With MSNBC Host and Professor Melissa V. Harris-Perry
Mark Karlin, Truthout: "Understanding the role of black women in American culture and politics can only be achieved by coming to terms with the complicated relationship between black female stereotypes and their impact on individual lives. Truthout Interviews Professor Melissa V. Harris-Perry about her new book, 'Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes and Black Women.'"
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Clinton Revives Dubious Charge of "Covert" Iranian Nuclear Site
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service: "US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's charge Tuesday that Iran had intended to keep the Fordow site secret until it was revealed by Western intelligence revived a claim the Barack Obama administration made in September 2009."
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Why America Needs Clean Needles
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Syringe exchange programs are fairly self-explanatory: drug users come to clean, welcoming facilities and exchange their used needles for a limited number of new ones. This prevents users from resorting to sharing and reusing needles, which an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, including eight federal studies, has shown saves lives by preventing the spread of blood-borne illnesses without increasing drug use."
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Jeff Cohen | Obama, Sarkozy and Taxing Wall Street
Jeff Cohen, Truthout: "With US media obsessing on the fight here at home among conservatives vying to become president, most of them missed some big news about France, which already has a conservative president. This week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced that he would take the lead - even go it alone within Europe, if need be - in introducing and pushing a financial transaction tax in his country."
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Lesson From New Hampshire: The Powerlessness of the American Citizen
J.A. Myerson, Truthout: "Hanging out in New Hampshire for the run-up to the primary is a powerful education in how undemocratic the American political system is. Corporate-funded journalists run around, jockeying for access to corporate-funded candidates, who, in the case of this Republican field, spent roughly $53 million campaigning in two states, both of which are over 90 percent white, where about 350,000 people voted."
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Robert Scheer | There's Hope for Republicans Yet
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "There is a full-blown debate going on in, of all places, the Republican Party about the failings of the governing, corporate-sponsored kleptocracy. Not so on the Democratic side. Spared a primary battle, the incumbent president need not defend his economic record, which is basically a redo of the save-Wall-Street-first stance initiated by his Republican predecessor."
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Guantanamo Has Got to Go: Protesting Ten Years of Indefinite Detention
Mark Engler, Dissent Magazine: "Wednesday was the tenth anniversary of the first transfer of prisoners to Guantanamo Bay as part of the 'War on Terror.' To mark the date, a coalition of human rights groups - including Witness Against Torture, Code Pink, Amnesty International, and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture - held a protest in Washington, DC. The solemn procession of orange-clad demonstrators stretched for blocks, making the event the largest protest on the issue since the start of the Obama administration."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: President Obama Announces Plan to Give Tax Breaks to Businesses Bringing Jobs Back to the US, and More
In today's On the News segment: Two-thirds of Americans believe there are "strong" conflicts between the rich and the poor in America, president announced a new plan to give tax breaks to businesses that bring jobs back to the United States, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against the Transportation Department for failing to hand over records regarding domestic drone flights, and more.
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Paul Krugman | Deliberate Deception in the US: Blaming Fannie and Freddie for Crisis
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "Joe Nocera gets mad. And it's a beautiful thing to see. In a December 23 column in The New York Times, Joe once again went after the Big Lie - the claim that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis - and drove home the point that the people advancing this story aren't just wrong but are acting with intent, engaging in deliberate deception."
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Self-Dealing: Even Ex-Federal Watchdogs Are Doing It
Dina Rasor, Truthout: "I have written about what to do about the revolving door in other columns, but there should be a special restriction on government watchdogs leaving to work with companies that they were investigating. These former government watchdogs are trained by the federal government and should be forbidden to go to work with any contractor, subcontractor or consulting firm that has any business with their former government agency."
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Bill Moyers Is Back, Just as Curious as Ever
Elizabeth Jensen, Truthout: "That didn't last long. Just 20 months after retiring his PBS series 'Bill Moyers Journal,' Mr. Moyers was back in the studio on a Wednesday morning in December, deep in conversation about moral political psychology with the author Jonathan Haidt."
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Obama's Mission Accomplished Moment? And a Military-First Policy on a Destabilizing Planet
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "Here's the ad for this moment in Washington (as I imagine it): Militarized superpower adrift and anxious in alien world. Needs advice. Will pay. Pls respond qkly. PO Box 1776-2012, Washington, DC. Here's the way it actually went down in Washington last week: a triumphant performance by a commander-in-chief who wants you to know that he's at the top of his game."
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The Tea Party's Not-So-Civil War
Matt Bai, The New York Times News Service: "Discussions about the Tea Party often miss the extent to which the movement is loose and leaderless, a disjointed collection of local chapters and agendas. But if the phenomenon has an epicenter, that place is South Carolina. The state's junior senator, Jim DeMint, is generally seen as the ideological forefather of the Tea Party, at least among elected officials."
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TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES
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Stereotypes are hard to break, particularly when it comes to race.
That issue was just directly confronted by First Lady Michelle Obama in a CBS interview, reposted on CNN with the headline "Michelle Obama: I'm no angry black woman." The "angry black woman" stereotype was the driving force behind racially charged attacks made by the right-wing amen media chorus during the 2008 campaign.
Michelle Obama almost never discusses any staff issues concerning the White House. Whether due to her personality as currently being a mother and advocate for better eating and veterans, or White House strategic concern about the heat that Hillary Clinton took for being politically involved in the Clinton administration, Michelle Obama has stayed out of the political frying pan, with rare exception.
But Michelle Obama felt compelled to respond to New York Times reporter Jody Kantor's new book, "The Obamas," which has stirred up quite a hornet's nest. After Michelle Obama's pushback, Kantor conceded that she could have been a bit more "precise" in some parts of the book, but stood by the basic "facts."
But there is a third possible reason for the first lady choosing to confront the racial stereotype of the "angry assertive black woman" that was starting to take hold again as a result of the book's account of alleged inside White House bickering involving the first lady. Bigotry about black women is deep rooted in America, and it was possibly about to get out of hand.
This ongoing struggle for black women is detailed in this week's Truthout Progressive Pick, "Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes and Black Women." The book's author is Melissa V. Harris-Perry, the rising star at MSNBC who began as a guest host for Rachel Maddow. But her full-time profession is in academia.
In an exclusive interview with Truthout about "Sister Citizen," we asked Professor Harris-Perry about the challenge of racial stereotypes confronting Michelle Obama:
Truthout: Michelle Obama is, of course, discussed in your book (Chapter 8). She has seemed to strategically avoid even the hint of being strident in her voice or actions. Yet, the stereotypes continue due to her having such things as muscle-toned arms or even her encouraging of sustainable organic gardening. Isn't there a cul-de-sac for some black women, particularly in politics? They just can't escape stereotypes, no matter how they act?
Professor Harris-Perry: I think this is true for all black women, whether they are in public life or not. These stereotypes don't exist because they are accurate representations of black women. They exist because they serve the goal of maintaining racial and gender inequality. You can't overcome a stereotype by acting opposite of it. The point is not to convince other people that you are worthy of being a fully participating citizen, the point is to convince yourself of that truth and to act and organize accordingly.
Clearly, Michelle Obama is like Hillary Clinton, an Ivy League-educated undergraduate (Princeton) and attorney (Harvard Law School) - but she has to face stereotypes confronted both by women in general and black women in particular.
In doing so, whatever the interpretations from Kantor's book, she has shown what Ernest Hemingway called "grace under pressure."
That's no stereotype; that's the essence of character and integrity.
Mark Karlin,
Editor BuzzFlash at Truthout
Gingrich Attacks Romney as "Predatory Capitalist": The Sharks Are Eating Each Other
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By the Numbers: Ten Years at Guantanamo Bay
Read the Article at Think Progress
For-Profit Medicine Can Be a Killer
Read the Article at BuzzFlash
Three Carlyle Group Founders Each Land a $138 Million Payday
Read the Article at The Guardian UK
Mitt Romney and Our Overdue Debate About Capitalism
Read the Article at The Washington Post
Fifteen Major Differences Between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party Protests
Read the Article at Addicting Info
Santorum Defenders Unwittingly Call Their Candidate a Liar
Read the Article at The Nation
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