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Monday 9 July 2012

Chris Hedges | Turning a Blind Eye to Catastrophic Truths
Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths. Artists, writers, poets, activists, journalists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, directors and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster. Members of this ... class, who are usually not welcome in the stultifying halls of academia where mediocrity is triumphant, serve as prophets. They are dismissed ... because they do not embrace collective self-worship."
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Bill Moyers | The Cowardly Lions of Free Speech
Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company: "In all the hullabaloo over the Supreme Court's decision on health care, another of its rulings quickly fell off the public radar. Before deciding the fate of the Affordable Care Act, the Court announced it would not reconsider Citizens United. That's the odious 5-4 decision two years ago that opened our elections to unlimited contributions. Within minutes of that announcement, right-wing partisans were crowing about the advantage they now own."
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Oakland Takes On Goldman Sachs
David Zlutnick, Truthout: "The City of Oakland is currently debating the possibility of terminating a contract it has with the investment bank Goldman Sachs. The deal … was supposed to save the city money, but instead has resulted in Oakland taxpayers making annual payments of around $4 million to the banking giant. This video takes a look at interest-rate swaps and how they've resulted in the transfer of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds from public institutions to Wall Street banks ..."
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The Dirt on Erskine Bowles: The Tame Half of Bowles-Simpson
Dean Baker, Truthout: "Alan Simpson, the foul-mouthed former senator, has apparently been sent to the sidelines. It seems that his inability to restrain his contempt for those ... dependent on Social Security and Medicare makes him an undesirable spokesperson for the drive to cut back these programs. While Mr. Bowles is clearly better able to control his temper and his vocabulary than Senator Simpson, those are not sufficient credentials for dictating the future shape of the Social Security and Medicare systems."
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Syrian Opposition Spokesperson: Any Transition Deal Should Entail Assad's Prosecution for War Crimes
Amy Goodman, Democracy NOW!: "United Nations and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan met today with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the midst of worsening violence. Syria's 16-month conflict has so far claimed more than 15,000 lives. Annan said today's last-ditch attempt to salvage a peace effort ended with an agreement on how to end the violence, but he did not disclose details. Earlier, he acknowledged his six-point peace plan had failed to halt the fighting between anti-government forces and the Assad regime."
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The Wall Street Scandal of All Scandals
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "We trust that the banking system is setting today's rate based on its best guess about the future worth of the money. And we assume that guess is based, in turn, on the cumulative market predictions of countless lenders and borrowers all over the world about the future supply and demand for the dough. But suppose our assumption is wrong. Suppose the bankers are manipulating the interest rate so they can place bets with the money you lend or repay them ..."
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A Primer on the Colonialism of Israel's Settlers
Jimmy Johnson, Truthout: "The Alternative Information Center on 12 June published a seventy-word notice that five dunams of land belonging to Rana Talbieh were being confiscated in al-Khader, a village west of Bethlehem. It was something of a banal announcement expressing some expected difficulties for a few nearby farmers, but it is exemplary of the fundamental process beneath what is often misnomered the Israeli-Palestinian 'conflict.' We can identify this process by distinguishing between two of the many ways that people relocate: immigration and settlement."
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After Five Years: Report Card on Crisis Capitalism
Richard D. Wolff, Truthout: "After five years of crisis ... it's time to evaluate what happened, why and what needs to be done. One key cause of this crisis is the class structure of capitalist enterprises.... By class structure, I mean enterprises' internal organization pitting workers against corporate boards of directors and major shareholders. Those boards seek first to maximize corporate profits and growth. That means maximizing the difference between the value they get from workers' labor and the value of the wages paid to workers."
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Why Letting the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich Expire Will Not Hurt the Economy
Pat Garofalo, ThinkProgress: "President Obama is planning to call on Congress today to extend the Bush tax cuts for another year, but only for those making less than $250,000. The Bush tax cut package is scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and of course, Republicans have said that they are only interested in extending all of the cuts, including those for the wealthy."
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Appreciating Undocumented Americans
George Lakoff and Elizabeth Wehling, Truthout: "Obama repeatedly uses the phrase illegal immigrants. It evokes a conceptual frame in which undocumented Americans are understood first and foremost as criminals. The president evokes this frame in his Florida speech, stating that current immigration policy 'denies innocent young people the chance to earn an education or serve in the uniform of the country they love.' Being innocent is the opposite of being guilty. The word cannot be understood outside of the Criminal Frame."
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On the News With Thom Hartmann: Pennsylvania Mayor Cuts Police and Firefighter Pay to Minimum Wage, and More
In today's On the News segment: Scranton, Pennsylvania's mayor cuts police and firefighter pay to minimum wage, record-breaking heat wave can no longer be dismissed as "just summer," corporations continue to gobble the commons from Michigan's public schools to Greece's airports and other state properties, and more.
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The United States Is Profoundly Uncomfortable With Peace
Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash at Truthout: "'We have always been at war with Eastasia,' George Orwell wrote in '1984.' That's the spartan message a woman named Emily Othus emailed me in January, and it has been sitting there in my inbox like a chicken bone caught in my throat. From time to time I would open the email with fascination, thinking of the bluntly eloquent analogy to the United States."
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Three Ways the Rich and Powerful Have Cheated Young Americans
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

Corporations Line Up to Sponsor Meeting of Nation's Governors
Read the Article at Republic Report

Mitt Romney's Current Focus: The Conservative Evangelical Base
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

For Black Americans, Financial Damage From Subprime Implosion Is Likely to Last
Read the Article at The Washington Post

Paul Krugman: What Mitt Romney's Gray Areas Say About America
Read the Article at The New York Times

Walmart's Dirty Partners: Does the Retail Giant Turn a Blind Eye to Subcontractors That Abuse Their Employees?
Read the Article at Salon

The GOP's Class-Warfare Hypocrisy, From Nixon to Romney
Read the Article at The Daily Beast

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