May 2010
13 posts
Wang Keqin and China's revolution in investigative... →
Interesting: The Guardian finds it totally acceptable to acknowledge corporate propaganda and influence over journalism in China, but discussion of that same topic is utterly out of bounds in the UK.
Coup and Countercoup, Revolution! →
A good overview of the failed 2002 coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chávez. By Eva Golinger.
(via Instapaper)
The Decline of Israel and the Prospects for Peace →
New Left Project have an absolutely brilliant interview with Jonathan Cook, a freelance journalist based in the West Bank, which explores a number of issues regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, and also some of the reasons why mainstream coverage of it is so skewed in favour of the Israelis. Usually I’d select a quote from it, but the whole thing is great and you should read it all.
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How the Corporations Broke Ralph Nader and... →
“If you organize 1 percent of the people in this country along progressive lines you can turn the country around, as long as you give them infrastructure,” Nader said. “They represent a large percentage of the population. Take all the conservatives who work in Wal-Mart: How many would be against a living wage? Take all the conservatives who have pre-existing conditions: How many would be for...
Charles Bowden: U.S.-Mexico 'war on drugs' a... →
Tucson, Arizona (CNN) — Last week during the day, some kids in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, were playing soccer in a park when a car slowed down, guys got out and executed a 13-year-old boy. And then they drove away, unmolested in a city with 11,000 army and police officers.
The Mexican government repeatedly states that 90 percent of the deaths in the current drug war are of people who are...
Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama →
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.
Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer...
Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle →
The genius of professionalism in journalism is that it tends to make journalists oblivious to the compromises with authority they routinely make.
By Bob McChesney.
(via Instapaper)
What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream, by Noam... →
When you critique the media and you say, look, here is what Anthony Lewis or somebody else is writing, they get very angry. They say, quite correctly, “nobody ever tells me what to write. I write anything I like. All this business about pressures and constraints is nonsense because I’m never under any pressure.” Which is completely true, but the point is that they wouldn’t be there unless they...
Do As We Say, Not As We Do →
Great NLP interview with Ha-Joon Chang, largely about foreign aid and economic policy.
We need to rethink the central features of development policy. No country is going to develop through foreign aid alone. They have to stand on their own feet, and if you implement policies that make it impossible for them to do that, then no wonder you find yourself having to keep giving them money.
(via...
"The evil scourge of terrorism": Reality,... →
The text of a lecture by Noam Chomsky.
The attack on Afghanistan in October 2001 is called “the good war,” no questions asked, a justifiable act of self-defense with the noble aim of protecting human rights from the evil Taliban. There are a few problems with that near-universal contention. For one thing, the goal was not to remove the Taliban. Rather, Bush informed the people of Afghanistan...
“A false rumor is spreading, and it’s wrong, saying that we are going to limit...”
– Hugo Chávez, in Internet revolution in Venezuela, by Eva Golinger
Political Compass: UK 2010 General Election →
What post-1980s elections demonstrate is passionate debate - but only within constantly narrowing parameters. The big clashes of vision are regrettably absent. Economic power has transcended political power, to the detriment of democracy. Between the big three, there’s no ideological argument about whether the prevailing economic orthodoxy is best for Britain, but simply which of them can...