News
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Howard Zinn’s 423-page FBI file released
July 30, 2010
Q: What is the greatest tribute an activist can be given?
A: The enmity of those in power.To that end, the FBI has today offered a great tribute to the late, great Howard Zinn, in the form of a 423-page declassified FBI file, covering Zinn’s activities from 1949 to 1974: essentially a list — vetted by America’s “best and brightest” and their faithful assistants of the period — of everything Howard Zinn did during the McCarthy Era, the Vietnam War, and all points in between to stymie the government and promote social justice and a more open society.
Happy reading — and thanks, Howard; you will be forever missed.
Tags: fbi file, history, howard zinn, politics/government, voices of a people's history, young people's history, zinn reader
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Ralph Nader on California’s Proposition 14: California enshrines the duopoly
July 27, 2010
The prior public debate over Proposition 14, for those who noticed the measure, was strange. First, the Ballot Book, sent to voters, misled voters by describing the measure as one that “Increases Right to Participate in Primary Elections.” In fact, it wipes out all other candidates on other lines but the top two vote-getters in November, thereby decreasing the right to participate in the general election. Second, many of the state’s largest newspapers, except for the conservative Orange County Register, editorially endorsed Proposition 14, saying it would reduce “partisan bickering.”
…
Ballot access obstacles are not enough for the monetized minds of corporations. Better, they say, to abolish election day altogether for minor parties and independent candidates. What’s next for the corporate supremacists, who misled and lied to the people to get their vote for Prop 14? When will the people awake and repeal it? — Ralph Nader on California Proposition 14Tags: articles, california, current events, elections, only the super-rich can save us, proposition 14, ralph nader
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Jesus of Nazareth reviewed at Patheos
July 27, 2010
From the Patheos review of Paul Verhoeven’s Jesus of Nazareth (article is the first search result at this link)
Imagine this movie trailer: from the director of ”Showgirls” and “Basic Instinct” comes his most revealing project yet—“RoboJesus.” One might expect such a…
Tags: jesus of nazareth, patheos, paul verhoeven, religion, reviews
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Ted Rall: Protofascism comes to America
July 22, 2010
Robert O. Paxton defined fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
Typical Tea Party rants fit the classic fascist mold in several respects. America, Tea Partiers complain, is falling behind. Like Hitler, they blame leftists and liberals for a “stab in the back,” treason on the homefront. The trappings of hypernationalism—flags, bunting, etc.—are notably pervasive at Tea Party rallies, even by American standards. We see “collaboration with traditional elites”—Rush Limbaugh, Congressmen, Republican Party bigwigs (including the most recent vice presidential nominee)—to an extent that is unprecedented in recent history.
Tea Partiers haven’t called for extralegal solutions to the problems they cite—but neither did the National Socialists prior to 1933. Then again, they’re not in power yet. Wait. —Ted Rall at altweeklies.com
Tags: anti-american manifesto, articles, current events, fascism, politics/government, tea party, ted rall
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Ralph Nader talks with the Real News Network about Only The Super-Rich
July 16, 2010
NADER: Now, super-rich people give a lot to charity. This isn’t charity. This is justice. This is shift the power. This is going after the causes of hunger, not soup kitchens. And that’s going to take a while, that kind of move, because, you know, years ago the rich just gave to their churches, and then they started giving to their own foundations—Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie. Now we have to move them into the justice arena.
JAY: But some people have suggested that this is a bit of you getting pessimistic or giving up on a people’s movement.
NADER: Well, partly it’s a recognition that justice needs money. — from the Real News Network interview with Ralph Nader on “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!”
Tags: fiction, george soros, interviews, only the super-rich can save us, paul jay, ralph nader, real news network, ted turner, videos, warren buffett, washington dc
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Amy Steele of Entertainment Realm reviews In Our Control
June 30, 2010
In Our Control doesn’t read like a scientific article but a wise and thoroughly researched expose on all aspects of contraception. Eldridge writes in a practical, often conversational format which should appeal to readers at all interest levels. … In Our Control should be kept on one’s bookshelf for reference next to Our Bodies, Ourselves and FLOW. — Amy Steele of Entertainment Realm’s review of In Our Control
Tags: birth, health, In Our Control, Laura Eldridge, reviews, women's health, women's issues
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Cynthia O’Neal and Talk Softly profiled in San Francisco Chronicle
June 24, 2010
… There is an aside in the book that more than sums up the extraordinary journey of Cynthia O’Neal’s life. She is in New Mexico, having dinner with her son, Fitz, who is trying to figure out his own path in life and decides that his ability to size people up might lead him to a job placing children with adoptive families. He’d know, he says, if someone would make a good parent or not:
“There it was - the question of what my son thought of me as a parent - there it was lying right on the table … I took a very deep breath and said, ‘What about me, would you have given me a child?’ Fitz looked me right in the eye and replied, ‘I wouldn’t have then. I would now.’ “— San Francisco Chronicle on Cynthia O’Neal and Talk Softly
Tags: aids, articles, biography, cynthia o'neal, lgbt issues, san francisco chronicle, talk softly
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Barry Gifford interviewed in BOMB
June 22, 2010
BOMB: Sailor and Lula, by the number of appearances they’ve made in your fiction, have become a Balzac-like way to connect your fictional universe. What is it about them that won’t let you let go?
Barry Gifford: Sailor and Lula entered my life talking and perhaps they’ll never stop. After Bad Day for the Leopard Man I thought I was finished but 15 years later I wrote The Imagination of the Heart, giving Lula the last word, even though it comes from her friend Bean Thorn. Perhaps it will be. I don’t promise anything. Someone wrote once in a review about them that if a writer is lucky, characters like this come along once in a lifetime. I consider myself lucky.
Tags: barry gifford, bomb magazine, fiction, interviews, justin mcneil, sailor & lula
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Economist: Ralph Nader’s “Only The Super-rich Can Save Us!” inspired the Buffett-Gates “giving pledge” initiative
June 18, 2010
From the June 17 edition of the Economist:
One of the unlikeliest books of last year was “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!”, a fictional account by Ralph Nader, a veteran left-wing campaigner, of a movement of billionaires led by Warren Buffett and featuring, among others, Ted Turner, George Soros and Barry Diller, who use their fortunes to clean up America. This was not, as you might suppose, a satire but what Mr Nader called “an exercise in practical Utopianism”. He even met Mr Buffett to urge him to take up the challenge.
Perhaps the Sage of Omaha, as Mr Buffett is known, was listening. On June 16th, with Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, he launched a campaign to persuade America’s billionaires to give away much of their fortunes. They are invited to take the “giving pledge” by writing a public letter promising to donate 50% or more of their wealth. Mr Buffett himself has written the first, which is published on a website, givingpledge.org. He says he will ultimately give away 99% of his wealth, most of which he has already pledged to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Although the letters will not be legally binding, they are intended to create a moral obligation which will be reinforced by peer pressure from others who take the pledge—a bit like members of Alcoholics Anonymous who promise to stay off the booze.
As we said in our press materials for the book: Picture it, and it can happen.
Tags: articles, bill gates, current events, economist, fiction, giving pledge, melinda gates, only the super-rich can save us, philanthropy, ralph nader, warren buffett
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Guardian: US should nationalize the oil industry
June 16, 2010
… In Sonia Shah’s definitive history of the oil industry, Crude, the base greed and exploitative nature of oil company executives is detailed time and again, and the laissez-faire attitude of the respective governments involved in green-lighting their activities is an ubiquitous trait throughout every stage of the process. Public and private sector prospectors thought nothing of wreaking environmental havoc wherever they sought black gold, more often than not causing massive social upheaval to boot in the countries into which they expanded.
Mass spillages and pollution across the world – in Alaska, Nigeria, Iraq and elsewhere – barely register with consumers in the west, so long as they don’t occur in their backyard. The minute catastrophe occurs closer to home, suddenly everyone and their dog is a green campaigner, an environmental warrior ready to don cape and clutch sword in pursuit of a better future for Mother Earth and all her children. Which is all well and good, for about as long as the spills dominate the headlines and trend on Twitter, but when the crisis is over and the wells are recapped, all reverts to business as usual. And business as usual means a refusal to bring about serious, societal change. —Seth Freedman, Guardian
Tags: articles, current events, deepwater, guardian, obama, oil, seth freedman, sonia shah
Recent News
- Jul 30, Howard Zinn’s 423-page FBI file released
- Jul 27, Ralph Nader on California’s Proposition 14: California enshrines the duopoly
- Jul 27, Jesus of Nazareth reviewed at Patheos
- Jul 22, Ted Rall: Protofascism comes to America
- Jul 16, Ralph Nader talks with the Real News Network about Only The Super-Rich
- Jun 30, Amy Steele of Entertainment Realm reviews In Our Control
- Jun 24, Cynthia O’Neal and Talk Softly profiled in San Francisco Chronicle
- Jun 18, Economist: Ralph Nader’s “Only The Super-rich Can Save Us!” inspired the Buffett-Gates “giving pledge” initiative
- Jun 16, Guardian: US should nationalize the oil industry
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