Newest Blog Entries:

Study: CEOs Who Fired Most Workers Earned Highest Pay

- Democracy Now
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Friday, September 3, 2010

A teaching moment That perfect moment: When a good teacher says the right thing can create enough inspiration for a lifetime

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Friday, September 3, 2010

The spoiled-brat American electorate

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Friday, September 3, 2010

The Dems Need to Speak to Progressive Values, or Else Lose Badly Come November

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Friday, September 3, 2010

t r u t h o u t | A Speech for Endless War

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

AlterNet: Are We a Kleptocracy and What Does That Mean Anyway?

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

DE BORCHGRAVE: Wars of religion

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

Dying on Our Doorstep: Mexico’s War and the US Drug Problem

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

t r u t h o u t | The Awful Price for Teaching Less Than We Know

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

time-to-turn-the-page.

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

AlterNet: What Created the Populist Explosion and How Democrats Can Avoid the Shrapnel in November

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

Truthdig – The Beck-Palin Show Is No Joke – Boyarsky

Posted by Michael Butler, Thursday, September 2, 2010

NYT Op-Eds (2)

"As the worlds of Alaska and reality TV collide, maybe the next new program should be entitled 'Shooting With the Stars'" (Collins); "The salmonella outbreak underscores that this industrial model of farms as meat and egg factories can be a health hazard" (Kristof)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, September 2, 2010

NYT (4): National News

ANOTHER BP OIL RIG EXPLODES!; Number if illegal immigrants falls; The dangers of medicating children; and Big Pharma co. pays $600 mil in fines for illegal off-label uses.
Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, September 2, 2010

NYT (4): Foreign Affairs

Mideast peace talks begin; Sweden re-opens Assange rape case; E.U. says French expulsion of Roma was illegal; and no apologies for Iraq in Blair's memoir (sidebar includes review of book).
Posted by Ian Alterman, Thursday, September 2, 2010

John Pilger: Flying the Flag, Faking the News [MUST READ]

Pilger ...
Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the "intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society", and that the manipulators "constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country". Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism "public relations". The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women that they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women's liberation, he made cigarettes "torches of freedom". In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit Company's monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a "liberation". Bernays was no rabid right-winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that "engineering public consent" was for the greater good.
.. read more
Posted by Mike Blaxill, Thursday, September 2, 2010

Strategists vs. experts — Obama loses

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Thursday, September 2, 2010

A speech’s tall order

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Thursday, September 2, 2010

4 Things Dems Can Do to Head Off Total Disaster in the Midterms

Posted by Bill Swiggard, Thursday, September 2, 2010

Truthdig – Two Wars Don’t Make a Right – Scheer

Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, September 1, 2010

AlterNet: Inside Top Secret America

Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, September 1, 2010

t r u t h o u t | In Search of Real Security, Part One: A Closer Look at Our Basic Needs in a Time of Crisis

Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, September 1, 2010

t r u t h o u t | Media Manipulates the “End” of the War in Iraq

Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, September 1, 2010

t r u t h o u t | After Saddam, America’s Next Fake Enemy: Deficits

Posted by Michael Butler, Wednesday, September 1, 2010

NYT Editorials & Op-Eds (5)

"There was no victory to declare as America’s combat mission in Iraq officially ended, and President Obama was right not to try" (Editorial); "To see what immigration hard-liners really have in mind, ride the Lake Shore Limited, a daily Amtrak train that is regularly searched by the Border Patrol" (Editorial); "With the Israelis, the Palestinians and the Iraqis, President Obama makes an ambitious reach to change the Middle East" (Friedman); "The biggest obstacle that now stands in the way of success is psychological. We must work toward rebuilding trust and a sense of security" (Mubarak); "Do we really desire Google to tell us what we should be doing next? Yes, but with some qualifiers" (Gibson)
Posted by Ian Alterman, Wednesday, September 1, 2010