Sunday 22 January 2012

Occupy Innovation: Neither the Military Nor the Market Does
Gregg Levine, Truthout: "Many conservatives (and neoliberals) love to argue that the marketplace is the best judge of winners and losers. Competition is the key to innovation, they argue. But in the consumer market, innovation isn't always about providing a better product. Just as often, 'innovation' means exploiting a leverageable point of difference or streamlining the manufacturing process in pursuit of better profit margins."
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Working and Poor in the USA
Bill Quigley, The Center for Constitutional Rights: "A study by Northeastern University found that in the poorest families, unemployment is nearly 31 percent. Underemployment is also much more of a problem in poor homes, with over 20 percent of those workers reporting they are working part-time but seeking full-time work. Our nation can do so much more. We say our country values work. It is time to do something about it."
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The FBI Spied on Me and Then Lied About It
Shakeel Syed with Farid Zakaria, Truthout: "We know from documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that the FBI has been routinely and illegally spying on the very communities with which it purported to be doing 'outreach' to build cooperation. We suspected that the FBI was doing the same to us, and in filing our FOIA request, we set out to prove it.... How many others, I wonder, have been subjected to the same lies and deception?"
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Utah Doctors Join the Occupy Movement
Dr. Brian Moench, Truthout: "In late December a group of doctors and environmental groups in Salt Lake City, Utah, announced a lawsuit against the third-largest mining corporation in the world, Rio Tinto, for violating the Clean Air Act in Utah.... The Utah Physicians for Healthy Environment estimate that the mortality, health and environmental costs to the community from [Rio Tinto] pollution is between $2 billion and $4 billion, more than the value of the wages and taxes that they pay."
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National Science Board Report: US Losing Research and Development Jobs to Asia
Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: "The United States is losing ever more jobs and becoming ever less competitive as our universities are cut back and companies move [Research and Development] jobs to Asia.... Since 2004, about 85% of the growth in R&D workers employed by U.S.-based multinational companies has been abroad, according to the National Science Board, a policy-making arm of the National Science Foundation, a U.S. agency. U.S. companies generally aren't closing labs at home but rather focusing their expansion abroad."
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TransCanada: No More Than 6,000 Pipeline Workers on the Job "on Any Given Day"
Lisa Song, InsideClimate News: "Twenty thousand jobs is the number used by TransCanada, the Alberta-based company that wants to build the pipeline.... Opponents of the pipeline say TransCanada has inflated the number of construction jobs by ignoring two facts: That most of the jobs would be temporary, and that there's a big difference between hiring people for varying periods of time and creating jobs."
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Americans Are Less Nationalistic Than Flag-Waving Politicians Think
Lawrence S. Wittner, History News Network: "Are American politicians out of sync with the public when it comes to foreign policy? There is considerable reason to believe so.... In a World Public Opinion poll of sixteen nations in 2009, 69 percent of Americans supported the view that nations are obliged to abide by international law even when doing so is at odds with their national interest."
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Labor and Environment: Next Steps for Dialogue
Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, Labor Network for Sustainability: "What does the future hold for the relationship between environmentalism and organized labor? Judging from the highly-publicized controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline, America might appear to be entering a new era of conflict over environmental protection versus jobs. But in a recent speech ... AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka opens the way for expanded labor-environment cooperation around climate protection. Trumka argues that addressing the climate crisis is the way to address the jobs crisis."
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Decline "Friend" Request: Social Media Meets 21st Century Statecraft in Latin America
Cyril Mychalejko, Upside Down World: "In this past year as the world witnessed uprisings from Santiago to Zuccotti Park to Tahrir Square, social media has been lauded as a weapon of mass mobilization.... While the positive contributions of technology to social movements and uprisings have been amply noted, if not overstated, more attention needs to be paid to the intrinsic dangers looming in the co-optation of this technology-driven networking, specifically by Washington, but by other repressive governments as well."
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Political Decay
Evaggelos Vallianatos, Online Opinion: "The Romans thought of themselves as exceptional people destined to rule others. Athenaios, a Greek of the second century on excellent terms with Romans, tells us that the Romans sucked the life out of their subject people. In 410, barbarians captured Rome. Now America is uttering the slogans of Rome. Republican politicians competing for the opportunity to 'defeat' the Democrat president Barack Obama in the November 2012 elections, ceasesly proclaim the 'exceptionalism' of America."
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Cult of Personality
John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus: "He is, in the words of Barbara Walters, a 'mild-mannered ophthalmologist.' Indeed, the rather squeamish leader-to-be chose eye surgery because it didn't involve much blood.... Bashar al-Assad has also proven to be a ruthless dictator whose crackdown on internal dissent has left more than 5,000 Syrians dead. What happened to the reluctant eye surgeon committed to modernizing his country along Western lines?"
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The Gentle Economic Collapse of the Empire
Mary Hall, Out on a Limb: "At some point there is a tipping point. Hundreds or thousands of people living in a space of love and peace with one another, getting all of their needs met without being controlled by corporations or the government is going to look pretty darn good. Good systems to grow the culture and revolution will mean it will be easy for people to see what a good life they could have by joining the new grassroots revolution. All the while the Empire falls, gently, without hurting a soul."
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The BuzzFlash commentary for Truthout will return Monday.

Roe v. Wade Anniversary: Marking the 39th With Marches and Blogs
Read the Article at The Los Angeles Times

Georgia Judge Orders President Obama to Appear in Court to Defend Citizenship
Read the Article at Addicting Info

At Least 178 Killed in Nigerian Bombing
Read the Article at Reuters

Swedish Radical Launched the Pirate Party to Fight Online Censorship. Now, It is Europe's Fastest Growing Political Group
Read the Article at The Guardian UK

Occupy Wall Street Looms Over Wins Against SOPA Bill, Oil Pipeline and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
Read the Article at New York Daily News

The Most Taboo Topic at the GOP Debates: George W. Bush
Read the Article at Washington Monthly

Scott Brown: What About All The Rich Schoolteachers?
Read the Article at Talking Points Memo

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