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Growing Health Crisis in the Gulf
by Stephen Lendman
The combination of millions of gallons of oil and dispersants has made large areas of the Gulf toxic and dangerous, marine toxicologist Ricki Ott saying if she lived there with children she'd leave - based on her firsthand experience after the 1989 Prince William Sound, Alaska Exxon Valdez disaster and subsequent research, documented in her books titled, "Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill" and "Not One Drop - Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill."
Ongoing today, the legacy includes criminal negligence, bankruptcies, destroyed lives and livelihoods, domestic violence, severe anxiety, trauma, PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse, serious illnesses, suicides, massive loss of plant and wildlife, and vast ecological destruction from the 30 million or more gallons spilled, the State of Alaska's conservative estimate, not Exxon's 11 million figure, its lowball claim to hide the disaster's
As Futility Reigns in Afghanistan, House Will Vote on More Funding Maybe as Early as Tuesday, Congress Has the Power and Responsibility to End this War
By Kevin Zeese
The House of Representatives will be voting this week, possibly as early as Tuesday, on $33 billion in funding to escalate the war in Afghanistan. The vote comes at a time of embarrassment and evident failure in Afghanistan. Record deaths of troops and Afghan civilian, rapidly rising spending and reports indicating it will just get worse.
The news reports of problems on the ground are bad enough, but the release of 92,000 documents by Wikileaks shows the war is "more grim than the official portrayal," as the New York Times concluded. TIME’s Joe Klein reported said that the documents make clear how futile the situation in Afghanistan is – and how utterly duplicitous our Pakistani "ally" has been.
Summarizing the Wikileaks war documents, the Guardian says:
• How a secret "black" unit of Special Forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.
• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.
Gazans Denied Medical Care under Siege
by Stephen Lendman
Two recent reports discuss it, a July Physicians for Human Rights - Israel (PHR-IL) one titled, "A Situation Report on Obstacles Facing Gaza Residents in Need of Medical Treatment," and a June one titled, "Who Gets to Go," jointly prepared by PHR-IL, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. All cite Israeli medical ethics and international law violations by discriminating on the basis of need, denying adequate treatment to seriously ill Gazans by:
-- preventing the restoration and development of the Strip's healthcare system; and
-- restricting travel to the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Israel, or neighboring countries for treatment.
Shirley Sherrod was presumed guilty
Mary Shaw
In the United States of America, one is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack hastily forced Shirley Sherrod to resign from her position in the Department based on the right-wing exploitation of a video snippet taken out of context.
According to Sherrod, when she tried to explain, no one would listen to her. No hearing, no trial, just immediate execution. Bam! You're fired!
And the NAACP's initial knee-jerk condemnation of Sherrod's speech was perhaps even less forgivable, since the speech was taped at an NAACP event. Surely if the speech were so out of line, the folks in the national headquarters would have heard about it before this. Still, the NAACP rushed to condemn Sherrod in a widely distributed press release, which was later redacted:
"Since our founding in 1909, the NAACP has been a multi-racial, multi-faith organization that -- while generally rooted in African-American communities -- fights to end racial discrimination against all Americans.
"We concur with US Agriculture Secretary Vilsack in accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod for her remarks at a local NAACP Freedom Fund banquet.
"Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race.
"We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers.
"Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man."
No, folks, Shirley Sherrod's actions were not shameful. Far from it. In her speech, Sherrod relayed a parable for racial unity and redemption. And she explained how she had indeed righted that wrong. What's shameful are the actions of the Obama administration and the NAACP, who fell for the right-wing propaganda and reacted too quickly and very inappropriately.
As Sherrod herself described it, "for some reason, the stuff Fox and the Tea Party does is scaring the administration. I told them to get the whole tape and look at the whole tape and see how I tell people we have to get beyond race and work together."
Still, they reacted first and asked questions later. And then they again had to go into damage control mode, but in the other direction.
So the right-wing propaganda machine scores another point. And the Obama administration and the NAACP look foolish.
It's this sort of weakness that may well lead to Republican victories in 2010 and 2012.
And, sadly, maybe those consequences will be all too well deserved.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com
Prospects and Consequences of Attacking Iran
by Stephen Lendman
Hopefully its folly will prevent it. Otherwise, expect severe repercussions, including a considerable counterattack and disruption of regional oil supplies, further impacting a troubled global economy. So why consider it, given the December 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) saying:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; (perhaps it never had one); we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons..." True or not, dozens of nations may consider one, for defense, not offense in a hostile world, America and Israel the main aggressors, threatening humanity with their weapons of mass destruction.
Israel's New Land Grab Master Plan
by Stephen Lendman
The new plan updates older ones, going back to the first, what Israeli historian Ilan Pappe documented in his 2006 book, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," on David Ben-Gurion's Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), his final master plan following Plans A, B and C, what Palestinians call the Nakba, the catastrophe, commemorated annually to never forget.
By bombarding and besieging villages and population centers, destroying communities, and expelling or killing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, it planned an exclusive Jewish state, excluding Arabs by any means, including mass-murder, dispossession, and persecution, ongoing to this day, what Palestinians heroically resist.
BP NUCLEAR OPTION Spells Mega-Disaster For Gulf Of Mexico
By Dr. Tom Termotto, BCIM, DCAE
There has been much speculation lately about a nuclear device being planned for closing in the BP Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico. The consequences of exercising this option go well beyond killing the Gulf of Mexico; there would be far-reaching and profound ramifications for the oceans of the world. There are many risks associated with this option that must be considered. Let’s review some of these before BP finishes the relief wells, which are allegedly being utilized for the strategic placement and detonation of a nuclear device.
DEEP OIL WELL DRILLING ALWAYS BRINGS INCREASED LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVITY
The radioactive levels of the hydrocarbon brew that has been flowing for over 90 days into the Gulf is already cause for alarm. The deeper the well, the greater the likelihood that the oil and gas effluent will have greater concentrations of radioactive components, particularly radium, thorium and uranium.
Start-Up Nation - The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. Council of Foreign Relations Book, McClelland & Stewart. 2009
Review by Jim Miles
There are no Palestinians….
Israel is an amazing place as one puts together the implications from Start-Up Nation. It is a fount of free enterprise can-do entrepreneurial spirit. There are no resistances, although something called an Intifada concerned the authors somewhat, without being specified as to what it is/was. There are no freedom fighters nor insurgents, no guerrillas nor rebellions. For that matter there are no Palestinians as the word has been expunged from the authors’ vocabulary completely (unless it was in a boring anecdotal section that I skim read and missed - not likely). Israel, except for a few wandering Arabs, was “largely a barren wasteland.”
We Can Handle the Truth – Stop Trying to Hide the Truth from Us
By Kevin Zeese
The Peace Movement Should Stand With Military Whistleblower Bradley Manning
The peace movement needs to stand with Bradley Manning and Wikileaks in their efforts to let Americans see the truth about what the military is doing in our name. We can handle the truth! Indeed, we need to hear the truth, not propaganda about how great the U.S. military is performing, in order to be responsible citizens.
The news from Afghanistan and Iraq is not good, but Americans are not even told all the news – especially when it includes abuses, even war crimes, committed by the U.S. military. The U.S. is supposed to have civilian control of the military, as President Obama recently demonstrated when he fired General McChrystal, but the people are supposed to be ultimately in charge in a representative democracy. We need to know the truth in order to do our job as citizens and hold elected officials responsible.
A FREEDOM CHARTER OR A SECOND NAKBA?
BY KENNETH O'KEEFE
Imagine this, imagine that Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress negotiated a deal with the South African Apartheid regime and settled for a “two-state solution.” Imagine Mandela negotiating with the Apartheid regime a land deal in which less than 15% of current day South Africa went to the black South Africans, the remaining 85% to the inherently racist Apartheid government and its people.
With that in mind, I ask, is there any real difference between that scenario and the idea of a “two-state solution” today? I am happy to know that ever-increasing numbers of people inside and outside of Palestine see what I see, the so-called two-state solution is in truth the two-state disaster, the second Nakba.
I can imagine the result of two states and, as far as I am concerned, anything less than one state, with all equal protection under the law, is a recipe for perpetual conflict. And that is exactly why every US and EU administration and puppets and stooges of all stations from around the globe support the second Nakba of two states. One a nuclear armed, economically advanced and land rich, the other impoverished and beaten, a legacy to the motto that ‘might makes right’ and justice comes at the barrel of a gun.
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