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Monday, 25 July 2016 13:16 |
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Ferguson writes: "Jon, I have so missed our evenings together on the sofa, you telling me about the latest evil or stupid or hilarious thing Fox News or the Republicans did."
Jon Stewart during a taping of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" in New York City. (photo: The Boston Herald)
Dear Jon Stewart – This Year's Been Hard Without You
By David Ferguson, Guardian UK
25 July 16
I have so missed our evenings together on the sofa, you telling me about the latest evil or stupid or hilarious thing Fox News or the Republicans did
 ear Jon,
I can’t tell you how good it was to see you again on Thursday night, especially after four days of the World’s Worst Party. After dealing with all those horrible people, and their terrible, hateful, angry ideas, running into my ex-TV boyfriend of 20 years felt like a kind of miracle.
I like your beard. It’s sexy, plus it gives you a kind of grizzled mariner’s gravitas. I heard you started a sanctuary for abused and neglected animals, which … great, Jon, that’s all I need, another reason to be in love with you. Thanks for that. On top of your work on behalf of 9/11 first responders, you’re pretty much the only TV beau I’ve ever thought of as marriage material.
And on Thursday night, oh, god, it was good to have you back, even for only a few stolen minutes. We fell right back into our old rhythm, didn’t we? Where have you been?! This year has been an abattoir without you, an unmitigated parade of horrors.
I have so missed our evenings together on the sofa, you telling me about the latest evil or stupid or hilarious thing Fox News or the Republicans did, pulling those faces, somehow making it all make sense and making it funny on top of that.
I have to admit I haven’t really been seeing Trevor that much. He’s a perfectly nice guy, charming and handsome, but I kind of feel like that’s part of his problem. He’s a perfectly nice guy.
Behind your humor, the giggle, the muppet facial expressions, I could always sense the glinting edge of your razor-sharp anger. It’s one of the things that always made being with you so satisfying. You get it. You’re not just my funny TV boyfriend, you’re a righteous warrior dressed as a jester – a clown with a knife in his teeth.
Honestly, since you’ve been gone, I haven’t even felt like hanging out with Stephen Colbert. It just makes me sad and reminds me of how things used to be.
The only person who even comes close to making me feel like you do these days is Samantha Bee. She rocks. Did you see her segment on Mike Pence? Deadly.
With political satire, it’s not enough to just be funny. Trevor’s funny, but I need more than that. I need to see an echo of the rage I feel. Horrible things are happening. I know you get it because I can see in your eyes that we feel the same things.
I hope you’re happy with your new life. For purely selfish reasons, I miss what we had, but obviously I’ve got no claim on you and can’t make you stay. I’ll always miss you, though. No matter who I love, there will always be a big chunk of my heart that remains devoted to you.
I guess, like Adele sang, “I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded/That for me it isn’t over/Never mind, I’ll find someone like you/I wish nothing but the best for you, too.”
Take good care. Don’t stay away so long next time.
Much love,
David
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10,000 March in Philly Calling for a Clean Energy Revolution |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=32951"><span class="small">Sandra Steingraber, EcoWatch</span></a>
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Monday, 25 July 2016 12:56 |
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Steingraber writes: "In spite of the dangerous heat - or maybe precisely because there are now simply way too many extremely hot days like this one - marchers showed up in huge numbers and they brought with them a revolutionary frame of mind."
People taking part in a climate march. (photo: Reuters)
10,000 March in Philly Calling for a Clean Energy Revolution
By Sandra Steingraber, EcoWatch
25 July 16
 t high Noon Sunday, with temperatures heading toward 95 degrees, I'm confident I was not the only one preparing to march through the streets of downtown Philadelphia who recalled that old elementary-school story about the wig-wearing drafters of the Declaration of Independence huddled inside of Independence Hall on a sweltering July day.
In fact, on the eve of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Independence Hall was the literal destination of this march to declare our independence from fossil fuels.
In spite of the dangerous heat—or maybe precisely because there are now simply way too many extremely hot days like this one—marchers showed up in huge numbers and they brought with them a revolutionary frame of mind.
Convened by Pennsylvanians Against Fracking and Americans Against Fracking—for which I serve as science advisor—the March for a Clean Energy Revolution attracted more than 10,000 people and was endorsed by more than 900 environmental, health, labor, political, faith, justice, indigenous and student organizations groups from all 50 states of the union.
The day kicked off with a press conference at city hall that featured local and national advocacy leaders as well as individuals from communities decimated by various fossil fuel extraction, transport and storage projects.
All together, these speakers called on current and future elected leaders to ban fracking, keep fossil fuels in the ground, stop dirty energy, transition to 100 percent renewable energy and ensure environmental justice for all.
"As the first national organization in America to call for a ban on fracking, Food & Water Watch has seen the movement expand dramatically, becoming a major issue in the battle over the Democratic nomination for the presidency," the organization's founder and executive director Wenonah Hauter said. Food & Water Watch served as a lead organizer of the march.
"Today, after listening to the science, more Americans are opposed to fracking than support it," Hauter noted, referring to the most recent Gallup poll that shows that Americans oppose fracking 51 to 36 percent.
Also speaking at the press conference, Teresa Hill of ACTION United decried the plan to turn Philadelphia itself into a major energy hub for fracked gas, which includes a proposed import/export terminal on the Delaware River.
Hill specifically called on Gov. Tom Wolf to say no to the expansion of oil and gas at the Southport site.
"Over one quarter of children in Philadelphia have asthma, primarily in lower income communities of color. We have the right to breathe, but corporations like the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery are poisoning us," Hill said.
Pennsylvania's Gov. Wolf is serving this week as the honorary chair of the DNC Host Committee.
The final speaker at the press conference—who also addressed the crowds at the rally at Independence Hall that followed the march—was soft-spoken Laura Zuñiga Cáceres, daughter of Honduran environmental leader and Goldman Prize winner, Berta Cáceres, who was recently assassinated. In a short, moving speech that was translated from Spanish, Cáceres described the environmental struggles of the Lenca people and their link to policies crafted here in the U.S.
Sharing a signature quote from her mother that seemed as much a comment on the climate crisis as on the personal threats faced by the world's indigenous peoples who confront it, Cáceres exhorted, "Wake up, humanity! Time is running out!"
During the march itself, I walked with the We Are Seneca Lake brigade. Wearing blue and carrying banners from past civil disobedience blockades, the Seneca Lake defenders—many of whom had been previously arrested in actions to stop gas storage in underground lakeside salt caverns—attracted considerable attention from marchers from other grassroots groups who were fighting fossil fuel infrastructure projects that were threatening their own communities. These include pipelines, compressor stations, LNG export facilities, oil trains and new gas power plants.
All together, these marchers formed the inFRACKstructure contingent in the March for a Clean Energy Revolution. In my opinion, this contingent carried the most creative signs and art during the march.
Intersectionality, to use the buzzword of the climate justice movement, was on display everywhere. The peace and justice community had a visible and vocal presence at the march, as did the public health community and the labor movement. The message, in both signs and words: replacing fossil fuel dependency with investments in renewable energy serves to de-escalate political conflicts around the globe, prevent chronic diseases linked to toxic exposure and create jobs that don't blow workers up.
"Climate change is already causing conflicts and crises around the world, from Louisiana to Syria. We need to make giant leaps towards a clean energy economy and put an end to the vicious cycle of dirty wars, climate refugees and reliance on dirty energy," Alesha Vega of the Coalition for Peace Action said.
In her address at the closing rally, Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action, said that a national ban on fracking was preventive medicine.
"We are marching to demand an end to fracking and other dangerous drilling practices that rely on toxic chemicals and are linked to an array of deadly diseases and disorders," Karuna said. "As health professionals, public health experts and people concerned with protecting health, we are gravely concerned about the mounting scientific evidence showing that these chemicals are regularly contaminating the water, the air and ultimately our bodies."
Indeed, just last week a Johns Hopkins study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that people with asthma who live near drilling and fracking operations in Pennsylvania are 1.5 to 4 times more likely to suffer asthma attacks than those who live farther away.
According to another recent peer-reviewed study that analyzed all of the relevant literature on fracking, "The great majority of science contains findings that indicate concerns for public health, air quality and water quality."
As the post-march rally at Independence Hall reached its rousing crescendo, a small plane circled overhead, pulling a sign that read: "Protect Unborn Children." It was a message that was surely intended not for us but the arriving delegates of the DNC.
And yet, as the plane continued to circle, I couldn't help but think about the comprehensive study published last year that linked fracking to premature births and at-risk pregnancies. Data on more than 10,000 pregnancies in Pennsylvania from 2009 to 2013 showed that the odds of premature births increased 40 percent when expectant mothers live in heavily fracked communities.
Premature birth is the number one cause of infant mortality in the U.S., as well as the leading cause of disability.
And thus did the intersectionalities up in the sky fly past us.
Meanwhile, down on the ground, the March for a Clean Energy Revolution concluded with a monumental artistic display that transformed a drill rig into a sun.
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FOCUS: Delusions of Chaos |
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Monday, 25 July 2016 10:16 |
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Krugman writes: "People of a certain age always have the sense that America isn't the country they remember from their youth, and in this case they're right -- it has gotten much better."
Economist Paul Krugman. (photo: Forbes)
Delusions of Chaos
By Paul Krugman, The New York Times
25 July 16
 ast year there were 352 murders in New York City. This was a bit higher than the number in 2014, but far below the 2245 murders that took place in 1990, the city’s worst year. In fact, as measured by the murder rate, New York is now basically as safe as it has ever been, going all the way back to the 19th century.
National crime statistics, and numbers for all violent crimes, paint an only slightly less cheerful picture. And it’s not just a matter of numbers; our big cities look and feel far safer than they did a generation ago, because they are. People of a certain age always have the sense that America isn’t the country they remember from their youth, and in this case they’re right — it has gotten much better.
How, then, was it even possible for Donald Trump to give a speech accepting the Republican nomination whose central premise was that crime is running rampant, and that “I alone” can bring the chaos under control?
READ MORE
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FOCUS | Tell Bernie: Just Say No to Playing Global Cop |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=5494"><span class="small">Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News</span></a>
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Monday, 25 July 2016 10:12 |
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Weissman writes: "This week in Philadelphia the Democratic Party will elect the country's leading liberal imperialist as its candidate for President. It's too late to stop that. But it's not too late for Bernie Sanders to raise his prophetic voice and urge America not to let her or anyone else play global cop."
Bernie Sanders. (photo: Marc Piscotty/Getty Images)
Tell Bernie: Just Say No to Playing Global Cop
By Steve Weissman, Reader Supported News
25 July 16
  ake up, America!” cried retired Army Lt. General Michael Flynn, addressing Donald Trump’s Republican convention last week. “There is no substitute for American leadership and exceptionalism.”
“This is a time for American leadership,” Hillary Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations in November, just after she launched her campaign for president. “No other country can rally the world to defeat ISIS and win the generational struggle against radical jihadism. Only the United States can mobilize common action on a global scale, and that’s exactly what we need. The entire world must be part of this fight, but we must lead it.”
“I believe America is exceptional,” President Barack Obama told the United Nations in 2013. “In part because we have shown a willingness through the sacrifice of blood and treasure to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interest, but for the interest of all.”
Caught up in their self-justifying praise of America as the indispensable nation, those in power have long taken as gospel that they should police the world, whether under the banner of a crusading war on terror or an anti-communist crusade. Their urge to intervene as the top global cop is deep-seated. During America’s war in Vietnam, a young radical named Bernie Sanders and his generation of student activists fought to root it out. We failed. Today, the same call for the US to do constabulary duty worldwide has become the go-to maxim for almost every pol, pundit, and savant who wants to be “taken seriously.”
“There are always going to be parts of the world that are in turmoil, and some of those will export their instability in various ways — terror and refugees being the most obvious today,” writes Fareed Zakaria, an elite pundit who knows precisely what serious policy-makers think. “When there has been a global superpower able to limit the chaos, it has often proved useful.”
Zakaria brings a telltale bit of history to bear: “Britain played that role in the 19th century, when, as the historian Max Boot pointed out to me, ‘there was a British military intervention somewhere in the world every year of Queen Victoria's reign.’ America has had its own tradition of limited interventions. ‘Between 1800 and 1934,’ Boot has written, ‘the U.S. Marines staged 180 landings abroad.’”
Boot still defends George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, while Zakaria shows far greater caution. History, he reminds us, “is replete with examples of ill-chosen interventions in support of nasty regimes, with unintended consequences and creeping escalations that produced greater instability and weakened the superpower, lessening its ability to act in central parts of the global system.”
Zakaria favors more limited, more carefully chosen interventions. “Were the United States bogged down in another major war in the Middle East,” he warns, “it would have less capacity to help its Asian allies deter Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea – which could threaten peace in the world’s most dynamic region.”
Much less gung-ho than Hillary Clinton, Zakaria is more in tune with Barack Obama and his whack-a-mole approach to fighting Islamist terrorism. But, no less than Obama, Zakaria epitomizes a liberal imperialism which – he insists ? “reflects the realities of being the world’s leading power.” It also offers a rational-sounding strategy for playing global cop.
The flaw is obvious, though apparently not to liberal imperialists, who live in a mental construct of their own making. What is realistic about using even limited military power in Iraq and Syria to stop terror attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando, not to mention Brussels, Paris, Nice, Bamako, and Istanbul? What is rational about pursuing endless wars in Islamic lands that only encourage American and European jihadis – whether on their own or directed by al-Qaeda or Islamic State – to act out their murderous fantasies?
From Osama bin Laden’s founding of al-Qaeda in the 1990s to today’s Islamic State, the terrorist masterminds have openly declared their intention to provoke the US and Europe into a global military confrontation, a weaponized clash of civilizations. Geared up to play global cop, American leaders and their European allies have given the Islamist provocateurs precisely what they want. This has helped the Islamists to recruit far more people to their side. And, on the home front, it has fueled anti-Muslim rage that demagogues like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen can use to gain power.
How stupid can the liberal imperialists be? I would rank them right up there with the neocons who surrounded George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld.
This week in Philadelphia the Democratic Party will elect the country’s leading liberal imperialist as its candidate for President. It’s too late to stop that. But it’s not too late for Bernie Sanders to raise his prophetic voice and urge America not to let her or anyone else play global cop. And it’s not too late for those of us who continue his revolution to make anti-imperialism an explicit part of our playbook.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France, where he is researching a new book, Big Money and the Corporate State: How Global Banks, Corporations, and Speculators Rule and How to Nonviolently Break Their Hold.
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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oger Ailes, the impresario of reactionary populism and in many ways the ideological godfather of the current Republican nominee for President, grew up in the industrial town of Warren, Ohio, and began his career first as a cue-card holder and then as a producer for “The Mike Douglas Show.” Fascinated by the persuasive properties of television, Ailes studied not only American programming but also the films of Leni Riefenstahl. In January, 1968, when Richard Nixon appeared on the show, with hopes of reviving his national political career, Ailes saw his own path to power. Even then a person of gargantuan self-regard, Ailes informed Nixon that he was in need of a “media adviser.”
