Dissent Continues One Year After BP Disaster

Friday 22 April 2011
Dissent Continues One Year After BP Disaster
Rose Aguilar, Truthout: "Gulf Coast resident Foytlin marked the one-year anniversary of the BP oil disaster by walking 1,243 miles from New Orleans to Washington, DC, to remind the country that even though the Obama administration and BP claim that life in the Gulf is back to normal, facts on the ground prove otherwise. She says people are experiencing everything from kidney damage to skin lesions, wildlife is dying, the economic devastation continues and the ecosystem has forever been damaged. Foytlin arrived in DC on April 14 after 34 days of rainstorms, heat exhaustion, tornadoes and countless blisters. She says it was worth it."
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Libyan Rebels Advance; US Will Deploy Drones
David D. Kirkpatrick and Thom Shanker, The New York Times News Service: "The government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi suffered setbacks on multiple fronts on Thursday as rebels in the western mountains seized a Tunisian border crossing, fighters in the besieged city of Misurata said they were gaining ground and President Obama authorized the use of armed drones for close-in fighting against the Qaddafi forces. The rebels in the Western mountains took control of a border crossing in the town of Wazen after an early morning battle that sent a small number of Libyan soldiers fleeing across the frontier, the official Tunisian news agency reported."
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Higher Education Under Attack: An Interview With Henry A. Giroux
C. Cryn Johannsen of Margins of Everyday Life interviews Truthout Board of Trustees member Henry Giroux, who holds the Global TV Network chair professorship at McMaster University in the English and cultural studies department.
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Senator Ensign Resigns Amid Scrutiny
Eric Lipton, The New York Times News Service: "Senator John Ensign of Nevada, the subject of an ethics investigation related to his affair with the wife of a former top aide, announced Thursday evening that he was resigning, effectively ending the high-profile Senate inquiry that had already ruined his once-promising political career. 'It is with tremendous sadness that I officially hand over the Senate seat that I have held for eleven years,' Mr. Ensign, a Republican, said in a statement."
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Barry Eisler | "2:46: Aftershocks: Stories From the Japan Earthquake"
Barry Eisler, Truthout: "For me, Tokyo was metropolitan love at first sight. It was 1992, and the government sent me for a language homestay. I got off the Skyliner at Ueno Station from Narita and that was it, I was done for. I could try to tell you why - the energy of the place, its strangeness, the feeling of method to the madness - but really, you might as well try to explain your first crush, your first love, the attraction of a lifelong romance. Whatever you can explain in words won't quite be it. The real connection is always too deep, too elusive, too mysterious ever to be corralled by language. The words will never get it right."
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Why Advocacy and Market Forces Fail Education Reform
Paul Thomas, Truthout: "After a piece I wrote confronting Bill Gates and the market/corporate-based approach to education reform, I received several responses that are typical of the mainstream faith in market forces embraced among both conservatives and liberals. One email claimed the person had been swayed by my arguments against merit pay for teachers and charter schools, but offered further, 'In many cases, schools do not see themselves as businesses.' I responded that education should not view itself as a business; in fact, the growing body of research on choice, competition and market forces as tools for education reform shows that the hypothesis fails in reality."
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The Law of Mother Earth: Behind Bolivia's Historic Bill
Nick Buxton, YES! Magazine: "The 'Mother Earth' law under debate in Bolivia's legislature will almost certainly be approved, as it has already been agreed to by the majority governing party, Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS). The law draws deeply on indigenous concepts that view nature as a sacred home, the Pachamama (Mother Earth) on which we intimately depend. As the law states, 'Mother Earth is a living dynamic system made up of the undivided community of all living beings, who are all interconnected, interdependent and complementary, sharing a common destiny.' The law would give nature legal rights, specifically the rights to life and regeneration, biodiversity, water, clean air, balance, and restoration."
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News in Brief: Bradley Manning's Supporters Confront Obama, and More ...
Activists in support of accused whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning confront President Obama with a protest song at a fundraiser; senior US and Iraqi military officials have been in secret negotiations to keep about 10,000 US troops in the country after the scheduled withdrawal of troops at the end of 2011; four Iranian immigrants, including a 17-year-old boy, have sewn their lips together with fishing wire and gone on a hunger strike to protest plans by the British government to deport them to Tehran; five of six men accused of the gang rape of a Pakistani woman were freed by Pakistan's supreme court nine years after Mukhtaran Mai caught international attention when she called for the prosecution of 14 men she said had taken part in the rape.
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Marching for Anzac in the 51st State
John Pilger, Truthout: "Australia's military budget is A$32 billion a year, one of the highest in the world. Fewer than two months' worth of this war bingeing would pay for the reconstruction of the state of Queensland after the catastrophic floods, but not a cent is forthcoming. In July, the same fragile flood plains will be invaded by a joint US-Australian military force, firing laser-guided missiles, dropping bombs and blasting the environment and marine life. This is rarely reported. Rupert Murdoch controls 70 percent of the capital city press and his worldview is widely shared in the Australian media. In a 2009 US cable released by WikiLeaks, the then Labor Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who is now foreign affairs minister, implores the Americans to 'deploy force' against China if Beijing does not do as it is told."
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Obama's Young Mother Abroad
Janny Scott, The New York Times News Service: "The president's mother has served as any of a number of useful oversimplifications. In the capsule version of Obama's life story, she is the white mother from Kansas coupled alliteratively to the black father from Kenya. She is corn-fed, white-bread, whatever Kenya is not. In 'Dreams From My Father,' the memoir that helped power Obama's political ascent, she is the shy, small-town girl who falls head over heels for the brilliant, charismatic African who steals the show. In the next chapter, she is the naïve idealist, the innocent abroad. In Obama's presidential campaign, she was the struggling single mother, the food-stamp recipient, the victim of a health care system gone awry, pleading with her insurance company for coverage as her life slipped away."
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The Best Remedy for the Price of Gas
Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang, The Los Angeles Times: "There is no magic wand that will bring down the price of gasoline, which has once again crossed the $4 mark in California. But there is a long-term solution that will inoculate us from higher costs in the future. The Obama administration can't do much to lower the price of a gallon of gas, but it is on the cusp of a crucial decision that could help consumers come out ahead because they would need less gas. Officials are quietly working on just how steeply to require the auto industry to cut emissions and increase mileage in the next generation of cars, SUVs and pickups."
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BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES

Are natural gas companies "fracking" some Americans to death, thanks to Dick Cheney?
If you review a recent report by a Congressional committee and watch the documentary "Gasland," (available as a premium with a minimum contribution to Truthout/BuzzFlash) the answer would appear to be yes.
No, people are not being shot in the middle of the night for deeds to their land or falling into vats of cyanide, but the unregulated process of extracting natural gas from underground rock (formally known as hydraulic fracturing) is leaving a toxic legacy. Thanks to Cheney, a bill was passed when he was vice president that exempted fossil fuel companies engaged in fracking from virtually any oversight - and exempted them from nearly all environmental laws and regulations.
The Cheney legacy includes not requiring the fracking industry to disclose the chemicals that they are using, but have since been revealed to include toxic agents (including "29 chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens," according to the Congressional report). In the film "Gasland," you actually see several house owners near fracking extraction facilities light their tap water on fire.
This week, Truthout journalist Mike Ludwig reported on a massive toxic spill from fracking in Pennsylvania, highlighting the environmental damage and health hazards caused by the industry.
But the human and environmental toll of fracking is hardly being reported upon in the corporate mainstream press, even though there is vocal and active citizen opposition by public health officials, residents near wells and environmentalists.
For that reason, it is well worth seeing "Gasland." As Thom Hartmann wrote in his review of the film for Truthout/BuzzFlash (soon to be posted in full):
It's a testimony to Fox's [the director] brilliant filmmaking that fracking has become part of our lexicon, Halliburton's and Cheney's crimes are becoming more widely known, and citizens are organizing across the nation to fight back. Another backhand testimony can be seen in all the very clean/beautiful/elegant TV ads - costing the industry millions - to try to make America's natural gas industry so pure, friendly, job-creating and all-American. If Fox hadn't made this movie, they wouldn't have to be spending all this money to green-wash their dirty work.
Support Truthout/BuzzFlash by obtaining "Gasland" with a minimum contribution and you'll quickly become a convert to stopping Americans from being fracked to death.
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
Admiral Mullen: Libya Is Moving Toward a Stalemate
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Seventy-Two Percent of Americans Support Raising Taxes on Those With Incomes Over $250,000
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Study Estimates That Illegal Immigrants Paid $11.2 Billion in Taxes Last Year, Unlike GE, Which Paid Zero
Read the Article at The New York Daily News
Is the Renewed "Birther" Boom Good for the Democrats Because It Marginalizes the Republican Party?
Read the Article at The Daily Beast
Planet Earth: Don't Expect the Corporations to Give a Damn. Their Only Goal Is Increased Profitability, at Any Cost
Read the Article at BuzzFlash
The Hagiography of Paul Ryan
Read the Article at Mother Jones
The Shrinking of Black New Orleans: The White Power Recreates the City. How Does It Fare on HBO?
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