Click here to view this and past newsletters online. Please add "messenger@truthout.org" to your email contacts to ensure delivery.  Thursday 24 May 2012 Messing With Our Minds: The Ever Finer Line Between News and AdvertisingKingsley Dennis, Truthout: "The manufacturing of consent is endemic within modern societies. Throughout history, the need to 'persuade and influence' has always been manipulated by those people in power as a means to maintain authority and legitimacy. In more recent years, the overall manipulation of the mass public mind has become less about making speeches and more about becoming a pervasive presence within the lives of each individual." Read the Article As Anti-Protest Law Attempts to Stifle Dissent, 400 Students in Quebec Arrested in Mass March Yana Kunichoff, Truthout: "In the most recent escalation in the battle between a Quebecoise government pushing tuition hikes and striking Canadian students, at least three cities saw mass arrests at demonstrations against a newly minted anti-protest law that activists are calling 'absurd.'" Read the Article Florida Congressman Demands Gov. Rick Scott "Immediately Suspend" Voter Purge Ian Millhiser and Judd Legum, ThinkProgress: "Florida Congressman Ted Deutch (D) told ThinkProgress today that Gov. Rick Scott was engaging in a 'blatant attempt to suppress voter turnout.' Scott is currently involved in a massive effort to purge up to 180,000 from the voting rolls. The list, purportedly of non-citizens, has proven unreliable. Earlier this week, Seminole County Supervisor of Elections Mike Ertel, a Republican, posted a picture on Twitter of a voter on the list falsely identified as ineligible, with his passport." Read the Article Prisoners' Families Are Paying for State Prison Kickbacks in Order to Phone Their Loved Ones Dina Rasor, Truthout: "Recently, I was speaking to a former prisoner on the effect of prison on his life. He told me that when you are in prison and then out of prison, you have two lives, or two personas. Outside of prison, you have your family and close friends and an investment in the rest of society. Inside prison, you have your fellow inmates in groups or gangs and the prison guards. He said that the more that you can keep contact with the outside world, the better chance you have to keep straight and not identify with and return to the prison world." Read the Article What Can Labor Win if It Backs Obama's Re-Election? Amy Dean, Truthout: "As usual in an election year, the labor movement has a lot of fair-weather friends. Late last month, when hard up for cash for its national convention, the Democratic Party turned to unions for funds. Labor refused to bankroll the convention, in part because unions are upset that it will be taking place in North Carolina, a so-called 'right to work' state." Read the Article Cooperative Banking, the Exciting Wave of the Future Ellen Brown, AlterNet: "Globally, the burgeoning movement for local, cooperatively owned and community-oriented banks is blazing the trail toward a new, sustainable form of banking. The results may not yet qualify as the Golden Age prophesied by Hindu cosmology, but they are a major step in that direction." Read the Article Pictures of Second "NATO 5" Informant, "Gloves," Published for First Time on Antiwar.com Steve Horn, Antiwar: "Today, on the morning of the pre-trial hearing of the 'NATO 3,' - who are being charged with 'conspiracy to commit terrorism,' 'terrorism' and 'possession of incendiary devices' - another explosive (excuse the pun) revelation has been made by Occupy Chicago. In an article I published yesterday on Truthout, a picture of only one of the two police informants, 'Mo,' was published in the press for the first time." Read the Article On the News With Thom Hartmann: More Than 31 Percent of All American Homeowners Are Underwater on Their Mortgages, and More In today's On the News segment: Europe is now drawing up plans for the departure of Greece from the euro zone, the housing crisis continues, the pharmaceutical industry is the single biggest defrauder of Americans taxpayers in history, and more. Watch the Video and Read the Article The Environment Is Dead: Long Live Mother Nature Raffi Cavoukian, Rabble: "If decades of environmental campaigns produced significant gains but have lost the overall struggle to protect planetary life, that raises key questions: What caused the failure? What is to be learned? What do environmental organizations, supporters and concerned citizens do now? What do we say to children, and to young advocates? Where's the new strategic road ahead?" Read the Article How to Forget on Memorial Day: Whistling Past the Graveyard of Empires Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "It's the saddest reading around: the little announcements that dribble out of the Pentagon every day or two - those terse, relatively uninformative death notices: rank; name; age; small town, suburb, or second-level city of origin; means of death ('small arms fire,' 'improvised explosive device,' 'the result of gunshot wounds inflicted by an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform,' or sometimes something vaguer like 'while conducting combat operations,' 'supporting Operation Enduring Freedom,' or simply no explanation at all); and the unit the dead soldier belonged to." Read the Article Romney's Disastrous Education Agenda: Reward His Donors, Make Sure Money Dominates Politics David Halperin, Republic Report: "Mitt Romney has just released his plan for educating America's young people, and it's wholly consistent with his overall philosophy: Allow money to dominate politics, and everything will work out great. Except that, when it comes to policies on college education, we tried that approach under George W. Bush, and it was a disaster for students and taxpayers." Read the Article What Started a Mississippi Prison Riot? Depends on Who You Ask Seth Freed Wessler, Colorlines.com: "A Mississippi jail is on lockdown today after a Sunday night riot left one prison guard dead and as many as 20 inmates and guards injured. According to sheriff's reports, the violence began as a gang feud and soon engulfed the privately operated facility, which holds 2,500 non-citizens incarcerated for reentering the United States after deportation and for other charges. But the fragments of information that have emerged from inmates and advocates suggest that the violence had more to do with a pattern of abuse and neglect that has emerged at privately run, for-profit prisons." Read the Article Drone Warfare: Killing Our Civil Liberties With a Joystick Ed Kinane, Truthout: "Drone warfare is cowardly. A technician jiggles a joystick. Seconds later, thousands of miles away, a Reaper drone robot airplane fires a Hellfire missile, maiming or dismembering unsuspecting, unarmed, often unidentified human beings. That technician, along with his or her chain of command, plays god - a god who takes no risk in taking those human lives." Read the Article Click here for more Truthout articles
The BuzzFlash at Truthout commentary will return next week. Drone Program Aims to "Accelerate" Use of Unmanned Aircraft by Police Candidates and Whistleblowers Continue to Receive Vicious Attacks The GOP's Played-Out Race Card Did Obama Just Deliver Marriage Equality in Maryland? The US Government Is Running a Massive Spy Campaign on Occupy Wall Street Romney Silent on Immigration as Latino Vote Slips Away Chicago Mercantile Exchange Entrance Blocked as Protesters Criticize Huge Tax Break Click here for more BuzzFlash headlines
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