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Stop Hiding Images of American Torture |
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Monday, 01 September 2014 13:44 |
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Excerpt: "On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union won an important victory for transparency when a federal district judge in New York City, Alvin Hellerstein, rejected the government’s blanket claim of privilege for all the photos."
One of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison torture images, 04/15/04. (photo: U.S. Guards Abu Ghraib)
Stop Hiding Images of American Torture
The New York Times | Editorial
01 September 14
 hooded man standing on a box, electrodes wired to his fingers. A naked prisoner lying on a cement floor, a leash around his neck held casually by an American soldier. The bloody bodies of dead inmates with their heads bashed in.
Ten years later, the photos leaked from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq remain seared into the American consciousness. But while the United States government was unable to prevent their release, more than 2,000 other photos taken at various American military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan have remained hidden under a 2009 law. By one account, the images — which officials say are a mix of snapshots by soldiers and photos by military investigators documenting allegations of abuse — are “worse than Abu Ghraib.”
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union won an important victory for transparency when a federal district judge in New York City, Alvin Hellerstein, rejected the government’s blanket claim of privilege for all the photos. Judge Hellerstein ordered the government to show why the release of the photos would endanger American lives, and to show that it had considered each photo individually.
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FOCUS | The Last Gasp of Climate Change Liberals |
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Monday, 01 September 2014 12:17 |
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Hedges writes: "The climate change march in New Yorkon Sept. 21, expected to draw as many as 200,000 people, is one of the last gasps of conventional liberalism’s response to the climate crisis."
Author Chris Hedges. (photo: PBS)
The Last Gasp of Climate Change Liberals
By Chris Hedges, TruthDig
01 September 14
 he climate change march in New York on Sept. 21, expected to draw as many as 200,000 people, is one of the last gasps of conventional liberalism’s response to the climate crisis. It will take place two days before the actual gathering of world leaders in New York called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the November 2015 U.N. Climate Conference in Paris. The marchers will dutifully follow the route laid down by the New York City police. They will leave Columbus Circle, on West 59th Street and Eighth Avenue, at 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday and conclude on 11th Avenue between West 34th and 38th streets. No one will reach the United Nations, which is located on the other side of Manhattan, on the East River beyond First Avenue—at least legally. There will be no speeches. There is no list of demands. It will be a climate-themed street fair.
The march, because its demands are amorphous, can be joined by anyone. This is intentional. But as activist Anne Petermann has pointed out, this also means some of the groups backing the march are little more than corporate fronts. The Climate Group, for example, which endorses the march, includes among its members and sponsors BP, China Mobile, Dow Chemical Co., Duke Energy, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Greenstone. The Environmental Defense Fund, which says it “work[s] with companies rather than against them” and which is calling on its members to join the march, has funding from the oil and gas industry and supports fracking as a form of alternative energy. These faux environmental organizations are designed to neutralize resistance. And their presence exposes the march’s failure to adopt a meaningful agenda or pose a genuine threat to power.
Our only hope comes from radical groups descending on New York to carry out direct action, including Global Climate Convergence and Popular Resistance. March if you want. But it should be the warm-up. The real fight will come once people disperse on 11th Avenue.
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FOCUS | Labor Day |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=15102"><span class="small">Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Monday, 01 September 2014 10:52 |
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Sanders writes: "On this Labor Day, we salute the trade union movement and all Americans who are fighting for the needs of working families."
Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty Images)
Labor Day
By Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
01 September 14
 n this Labor Day, we salute the trade union movement and all Americans who are fighting for the needs of working families.
The sad reality of today's America is that while the wealthiest people and largest corporations are doing phenomenally well, the middle class is disappearing and millions of Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. Congress must start listening to the needs of ordinary Americans, not just the billionaire class and their lobbyists.
We can create millions of new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and dramatically improve life for low-wage workers by raising the minimum wage. We need new trade policies to prevent corporations from throwing American workers out on the street and running to China for cheap labor and we need new tax policies so they can't stash their profits in foreign tax havens. We need real campaign finance reform so that the Koch brothers and other billionaires are no longer able to buy elections.
In other words, we need an agenda that works for all Americans, and not just the very rich.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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This Is Mighty White of You |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Monday, 01 September 2014 07:55 |
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Pierce writes: "Hillary Clinton finally said something about recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. What she said appears to have been written by nine consultants, eight people from marketing, seven lawyers, six ESL valedictorians, and Mark Penn."
Hillary Clinton. (photo: Reuters)
This Is Mighty White of You
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
01 September 14
 illary Clinton finally said something about recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. What she said appears to have been written by nine consultants, eight people from marketing, seven lawyers, six ESL valedictorians, and Mark Penn. She feels very bad about the stuff that happened, as stuff sometimes will happen, because it is stuff, and it happens. Or something.
This summer, the eyes of our country and indeed the world have been focused on one community in the middle of the American heartland, Ferguson, Missouri. Watching the recent funeral for Michael Brown, as a mother, as a human being, my heart just broke for his family, because losing a child is every parent's greatest fear and an unimaginable loss. But I also grieve for that community and for many like it across our country. Behind the dramatic, terrible pictures on television, are deep challenges that will be with them and with us long after the cameras move on. This is what happens when the bonds of trust and respect that hold any community together fray. Nobody wants to see our streets look like a war zone, not in America. We are better than that. We saw our country's true character in the community leaders that came out to protest peacefully and worked to restrain violence. The young people who insisted on having their voices heard and in the many decent and respectful law enforcement officers who showed what quality law enforcement looks like. Men and women who serve and protect their communities with courage and professionalism, who inspire trust, rather than fear. We need more of that, because we can do better.
What is our country's "true character," at least as it is defined by the people in authority, is a heavily militarized police force made up of trigger-happy yahoos who consider any black person a threat? Why isn't that just as plausible an interpretation of recent events? Because America, fk yeah!? Try again.
We can't ignore the inequities that persist in our justice system that undermine our most deeply held values of fairness and equality. Imagine what he with would feel and what we would do if white drivers were three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as black drivers. Instead of the other way around; if white offenders received prison sentences 10 percent longer than black offenders for the same crimes; if a third of all white men, just look at this room and take one-third, went to prison during their lifetime. Imagine that. That is the reality in the lives of so many of our fellow Americans and so many of the communities in which they live. I applaud President Obama for sending the attorney general to Ferguson and demanding a thorough and speedy investigation, to find out what happened, to see that justice is done, to help this community begin healing itself. We should all add our voices to those that have come together in recent days to work for peace, justice and reconciliation in Ferguson, and beyond, to stand against violence and for the values that we cherish. We can do better.
I don't have to imagine it. I know it, because it is actually happening. Thank you for noticing.
We can work to rebuild the bonds of trust from the ground up. It starts within families and communities. It was 51 years ago today that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called us to live out true meaning of our creed, to make the dream real for all Americans. That mission is as fiercely urgent today as when he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the hot August sun all those years ago.
The fierce urgency of taking two weeks to say something is not what Dr. King was talking about, I do not believe.
So we have a lot of work to do together. At Nexenta, you say, better living for a better world. At the Clinton Foundation, we say, we're all in this together. If you put those together, it comes out to a pretty good road map for the future. We need all of you, your energy and your efforts, your innovation, your building, your creating to help us achieve that better world.
Nicely done. Plug the corporation that paid for these banalities.
Mother Mary, I hope she can do better than this.
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o, what do you think about those Medicare numbers? What, you haven’t heard about them? Well, they haven’t been front-page news. But something remarkable has been happening on the health-spending front, and it should (but probably won’t) transform a lot of our political debate.
