Truthout Headlines Jan 21

Friday 21 January 2011
William Rivers Pitt | Just the Same Old Dumb
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "Understand that I have been a Chronicler of Dumb for a very long time now. I am a Student of Dumb, and a well-worn one at that. I got my Bachelor's Degree in the Study of Dumb during the Clinton impeachment. I got my Masters in the aftermath of the 2000 (s)election. It took a grueling eight years, but I got my first Ph.D in Dumb Studies during the George W. Bush administration. After that, earning my second Dumb Studies Ph.D came a lot easier over the last two years of observing and reporting on the demented frenzy of Dumb that has been emanating from a broad swath of the Republican Party since the election of a president who is a Democrat and also not White."
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Lawsuit: Federal Prisoners "With Unpopular Political Beliefs" Isolated, Abused
William Fisher, Truthout: "If you are unlucky enough to be doing time at one of the federal government's two 'experimental prisons' - which it calls Communications Management Units (CMUs) - you are categorically banned from any physical contact with visiting friends and family, including babies, infants and minor children. Severe restrictions are also placed on your access to phone calls and letters, as well as work and educational opportunities... Two federal prisons are being used as CMUs and overwhelmingly hold Muslim prisoners and prisoners with unpopular political beliefs. Opponents charge they are practicing religious profiling, retaliation and arbitrary punishment."
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Does "Democracy" Still Mean Anything? (And in Case It Does, What Is It?)
Zygmunt Bauman, Truthout: "Henry A. Giroux wonders how one can possibly explain 'the electoral sweep that just put the most egregious Republican Party candidates back in power?'... One is the successful creation of 'punitive justice and a theatre of cruelty' as the political formula accepted (or at least acceptable) by the majority of Americans. The other is the accelerated pace of 'social amnesia': The most outrageous misdemeanor of the rulers, not so long ago a cause of public outcry, is pushed aside or forgotten altogether in time for the midterm elections. But there is another possibility as well, one that is perhaps too gruesome for the future of democracy to be seriously broached. It is the possibility - nay, the likelihood - that the link between public agenda and private worries, the very hub of the democratic process, has been broken, with each of the two spheres rotating by now in mutually isolated spaces, set in motion by mutually unconnected and un-communicating (though certainly not independent!) factors and mechanisms."
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On Anniversary of Citizens United Ruling, Calls for DOJ to Investigate Scalia and Thomas
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!: "Today marks the one-year anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns. We speak with Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, which has filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Justice urging it to investigate whether Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have recused themselves from the case last year because of a conflict of interest."
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Europeans Freeze Assets Linked to Deposed Tunisian President; What About US?
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "Last Friday, popular protests over unemployment and corruption forced Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to resign after 23 years in power. A Tunisian prosecutor has opened an investigation into the overseas assets of Ben Ali and his family, much of which are widely believed to be the fruit of corruption and some of which the Tunisian government may try to recover. France, Switzerland and Germany have all announced the freezing of assets linked to the Ben Ali clan; the European Union is considering doing so.... Shouldn't the US also move to freeze any assets in the US linked to the Ben Ali clan and indicate its full support for Tunisian efforts to recover stolen assets?"
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Volcker Out, Immelt In on Economic Board
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Anahad O'Connor, The New York Times News Service: "President Obama will name Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief executive officer and chairman of General Electric, on Friday to run his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who is stepping down, the White House said. Mr. Immelt will chair a new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness that Mr. Obama intends to create by executive order.... The changes signal what the White House describes as 'a new phase of our recovery,' a shift from crisis to job creation."
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Corporations, Unions and the Value of Opposition
Ellen Dannin, Truthout: "Why have unions? Because the persistent problem of unlimited corporate power requires an effective counterbalance. The need for such a counterbalance is clear. We saw the effect of increasing corporate power in the 2010 elections. We see it in virtually every law considered by Congress and state legislatures. And we saw it in the period leading up to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression. As corporations grow mightier, they are able to amass even greater power. Then, just as now, Supreme Court decisions made corporations unaccountable to their societies by removing limits on corrupting and destructive power wielded by corporations."
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Verizon Sues FCC to Overturn Order on Blocking Web Sites
Edward Wyatt, The New York Times News Service: "Less than a month after the Federal Communications Commission adopted an order aimed at keeping Internet service providers from blocking access to certain Web content or applications, Verizon asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to overturn the new rule.... Aparna Sridhar, policy counsel for Free Press, a group that thought the F.C.C. order did not go far enough, said Verizon's decision 'demonstrates that even the most weak and watered-down rules aren't enough to appease giant phone companies.'"
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"Miami Rice": The Business of Disaster in Haiti
Beverly Bell and Tory Field, Truthout: "As we file this article, Port-au-Prince is thick with gunfire and the smoke of burning tires. Towns throughout the country and the national airport are shut down due to demonstrations. Many are angry over the government's announcement Tuesday night reporting which two presidential candidates made the run-offs: Jude Celestin, from the widely hated ruling party of President Rene Preval, and the far-right Mirlande Manigat. The announcement betrays another obvious manipulation of what had already been a brazenly fraudulent election. A democratic vote is one more thing that has been taken from the marginalized Haitian majority, compounding their many losses since the earthquake of January 12."
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With More Jobs Coming in 2011, It May Finally Feel Like Recovery
Tony Pugh, McClatchy Newspapers: "America's slow climb from the depths of the Great Recession appears well under way. As fears of a double-dip downturn fade, even the most pessimistic experts are asking how far and how fast will the U.S. economy recover this year? Finally, after months with the economy essentially stuck in neutral, there are encouraging signs: Employers are beginning to add jobs, from manufacturers of steel, cars and heavy machinery to online retailers and high-tech firms. But like a massive cleanup after a natural disaster, righting the nation's economy after losing 8 million jobs will be a long, painful process for millions of job seekers."
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Microcredit: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
David Korten, Yes! Magazine: "For more than twenty years, microcredit has been widely heralded as the remedy for world poverty. Recent news stories, however, have sullied microcredit's glowing reputation with reports on scandals, exorbitant compensation to managers, skyrocketing interest rates, and aggressive marketing schemes. Once praised as a universal panacea, microlenders are now being widely attacked as predatory loan sharks.... What happened? It turns out there are two very different models of microcredit."
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Court and Chevron's "Crude" Attacks Continue
Michael Winship, Truthout: "Joe Berlinger's back is against the wall. Last week the independent filmmaker, already facing crushing debt from legal bills, was dealt a major blow in his continuing fight against the third-largest company in America: Chevron. It's a battle that epitomizes the hardship individuals face trying to challenge corporate giants that punch back with a knockout force of high-powered lawyers and unlimited cash. What's more, Berlinger's struggle continues to raise serious First Amendment issues and - as we approach the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision - throws yet another spotlight on the increasingly pro-business stance of the nation's legal system."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Put aside the Fox fraudcasting lies and Tea Party vitriol for awhile. The state visit of President Hu Jintao of China has shown how the delusional triumphalism of the right wing has hampered America's growth.
It's nice to take a walk down Disneyland's Reaganesque Main Street and yearn for the days when America emerged as the empire of the Western world after WW II. But when you leave the theme park and look at the for-rent signs on abandoned retail shops, reality sets in.
Yesterday, I wrote about how the incessant whining and bitter sense of victimization of many white Christians on the right - focusing on Sarah Palin as an example - is a drag on the growth of our economy. It is hard to be innovative and economically entrepreneurial when you wake up with a belly full of bile and self-pity.
Then, the president of China shows up: a nation whose economy grew by 10.3 percent last year , a nation who owns a quarter of America's debt; a nation who now has tens upon tens of thousands of jobs that used to belong to Americans; a nation with a large trade surplus (while the US wallows in a huge deficit); a nation whose economy is growing so fast, it's biggest problem is inflation, not a lack of jobs.
If you walk into a Walmart, which champions an image of an all-American corporation, a good portion of the goods - if not most - will be manufactured in China or other Asian cheap-labor nations.
During Hu Jintao's trip, President Obama - a normally impeccably eloquent speaker - was reduced to pleading that America be allowed to sell more "stuff" to China.
You can walk around in an Uncle Sam hat with a misspelled sign about a so-called "Communist" president and yearn for a fairy-tale image of the pre-civil rights '50s, but a real Communist nation that has embraced global trade and imported Western jobs is beating the pants off of the grim weepers of the right.
It's time to tap into the kind of American ingenuity that moves us forward and stop wallowing in self-defeatist hate and politically manufactured nostalgia.
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
Few Say America Is Well-Positioned to Compete in the Global Economy
Read the Article at The Washington Post
California's Bleak Labor Market Gets Worse; Jobless Rate at 12.5 Percent
Read the Article at The Los Angeles Times
Paul Krugman: China Takes a Page From Nixon
Read the Article at The New York Times
Obama Tries to Save Lives With Health Care Reform; GOP Bent on Letting Americans Die and Go Bankrupt
Read the Article at BuzzFlash
Climate Threatens Species at Every Altitude
Read the Article at The New York Times
The Incessant and Insufferable Whining of Dr. Laura
Read the Article at BuzzFlash
Congresswoman Giffords Flown to Texas to Begin Rehabilitation Therapy
Read the Article at The Los Angeles Times
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