Walter Brasch: President Obama and Secretary Clinton could not allow government action against the filmmakers, as the protestors wanted. The Founding Fathers demanded freedom of speech, the press, and religion.
Why Are the UN and Human Rights Watch Undercutting Rwanda?
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Georgianne Nienaber: What are the possible motivations for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Congo (MONUSCO) to participate in an orchestrated pattern of leaking material detrimental to Rwanda to the international press, and what axe does HRW, if any, have to grind?
Kony 2012, Does Social Media Oversimplify?
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Matthew Kavanagh: From Twitter trending to the front page of The New York Times to public statements by the White House and the Pentagon, the Kony 2012 campaign has shown the power of social media to affect U.S. public debate – but what about the dangers of oversimplification?
Kony 2012: Whiteness, Social Media and Africa
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Jessie Daniels: Kony 2012 is, then, an endorsement of the moral superiority of white values of reason, order, and now social media against the supposed chaos and violence of Africa.
Green Party Music Benefit March 22nd
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Please join peace activist Marcy Winograd, the Goo Goo Dolls’ Mike Malinin, Violinist Lili Haydn and others for the Green Party Music Benefit in Santa Monica.
Cynthia McKinney Tells It Like It Is: A Conversation with Gary S. Corseri
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Gary Corseri: When I was running for Congress back in 1992–for the first time—I was running to represent the second poorest district in Georgia… and, what I learned was that the poor people gave the most! — Cynthia McKinney
Occupy’s Woman Problem
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Tina Dupuy: Women may be the 51%, but the Occupy camps and General Assemblies look as gender-imbalanced as Congress
Occupy Wall Street: Children of the Lost Decade Revolt
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Tina Dupuy: Like the Egypt and Tunisia uprisings, Occupy Wall Street are youths worried about their futures’ downgrade. It’s about the lack of prospects in the “land of opportunity.”
Repubs and the Art of Flip-Flopping
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Michael Sigman: The three so-called top-tier Republican presidential candidates — Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — are, even as we speak, busy disavowing their inconvenient earlier statements by employing what an old boss of mine called the “Let’s do a 180″ strategy.
White Power, White Terrorism, White Mainstream
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Jessie Daniels: The white mainstream is already framing this shooting as the act of a crazed, lone gunman, rather than part of a consistent pattern of right-wing violence perpetrated almost exclusively by white men who are responding to a political climate that is increasingly stoked by vitriolic rhetoric.
Voting. . .It’s Important
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Eric Bauman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party sent this video to remind us all that Election Day is around the corner and California has a clear choice to make. Says Bauman, “While Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and their Republican cronies hope to protect right-wing conservative special interests and their “friends” on Wall Street, Democrats are [...]
Bill Clinton Puts Influential Muscle Behind Agricultural Production in Haiti
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Georgianne Nienaber: Given the huge remaining humanitarian and economic crisis facing Haiti, it is puzzling that mainstream media in the United States short-changed coverage of former President Bill Clinton’s early August visit to Leogane. The symbolism is significant, considering that Leogane and the nearby village of Fayette are at the epicenter of the 7.0 quake.
How the Internet Can Make It Harder to Act
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Paul Loeb: For all the strengths of online engagement, people still need to gather together, eat, joke, flirt, tell their stories, attach names to faces, and ultimately build deeper levels of trust.
Andrew Breitbart and Post Racial America
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Mario Solis-Marich: The swift reaction of the Obama administration in the notorious incident of Shirley Sherrod is an indication that the fear of the accusation of racism against white Americans has spread into official Washington.
Media Contributes to Victim Mentality as Gulf Struggles
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Georgianne Nienaber: Journalists have a responsibility to examine the science and it will not be easy. The public has a responsibility to learn more about their environment. It is obvious that government is not looking out for Gulf Coast residents. Communities will be forced to step in and do independent monitoring.
Bottlenose Dolphin Teeth, British Petroleum PR, and Reality on the Mississippi Delta
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Georgianne Nienaber: There is a deep distrust of anything British Petroleum has to say here in south Louisiana, and the President’s claim that 90 percent of the flow will be stopped by the middle of July is being roundly criticized. If the number came from BP, there is good reason to be incredulous.
Google Isn’t (Necessarily) Making Us Stupid
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Michael Sigman: Contemplative practices like meditation and yoga — the yin to Internet promiscuity’s yang — are also on the rise. But my own meditation practice — which facilitates clarity and focus — has benefited incalculably from Buddhist and other spiritual websites, blogs, lectures, readings, videos and guided meditations. And my meditation group’s email tree has become an interactive source for ideas, links and information about local events members might otherwise never discover.
Haiti’s Fayette Villagers Forgotten at Epicenter
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Georgianne Nienaber: While Leogane is completely overrun with NGOs, Fayette gets visits from the occasional scientist, and the only camera lens focused on the village is aboard NASA’s EO-1 satellite. Villagers told us they have not seen any aid workers since the quake. Nestled in fertile, natural surroundings along the Momance River, the local population is self-sufficient. They are not requesting money, food or water, but they do not want to be forgotten, either.
Home, for Free
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S. Blair Fox: The movie begins with a vivid description of how life formed on our planet while showing us arial views of colorful, jagged formations and steam-heated pools. It describes how the balance of our biosphere formed to create the complex structures of today’s ecosystems.
Healthcare in America
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This video was provided by Bill Moyer’s PBS Television show. It is available on YouTube. Here, Bill Moyer’s interviews Wendell Potter a former healthcare insurance executive. The interview is approximately 37 mins long. The following message was sent to the LA Progressive by a reader who calls himself jacksmith: We have the 37th worst quality [...]
Jingoism Isn’t Journalism! Why I Don’t Trust CNN & Corporate Media To Cover Iran
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As a critic of media, in particular of cable/satellite “news,” I’m troubled by American corporate-media, in particular CNN’s near non-stop coverage of the turmoil in Iran. Not because the story isn’t important. It’s critically important and warrants the personal coverage it’s getting from the Iranian people as they bypass corporate channels to tell their stories [...]
As Nation Moves Left, Media Stuck in Past
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Despite Barack Obama’s victory and polls showing strong support for a progressive agenda, the traditional media is “staying the course” in presenting the news. While the blogosphere pokes fun at the FOX News-created “tea parties” on April 15, CNN and other media are giving wide coverage to these fake protests, ignoring legitimate protests and rallies [...]
The Heritage Foundation Spreads Lies on YouTube About the Employee Free Choice Act
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The Heritage Foundation posted a paid advertisement yesterday on YouTube’s homepage claiming that in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) workers only hear “the union organizer’s side.” The infomercial tells viewers that worker enthusiasm for union membership drops off from the time of the initial card check to the time of electing [...]
The Year’s Best Political Videos
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I am certain a few of your favorites were left out. These were the best moments of the campaign. There are no adverts because nothing could trump the candidate in their own words and that was the big difference in this campaign. All of us had unprecedented access to every word, speech and moment thanks [...]
What I Learned at the Sarah Palin Rally Before They Threw Me Out!
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On Saturday, I went to Carson, California, to attend a rally for Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. For those who aren’t familiar with the city of Carson, it’s approximately 19 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. In the 2004 Presidential election, Carson, which had a population of just under 90,000, donated three times as [...]
We’re Going To ‘Willie Horton’ Obama
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I couldn’t believe my ears. First, on Sunday, a McCain campaign spokesman told reporters that if they didn’t “turn the page on the economy, we lose.” Now, my source at McCain headquarters is laying out Straight Talkin’ John’s hideous strategy for the last 28 days of the campaign.
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Cenk Uygur: Can Progressives Reclaim the Democratic Party?
Sharon Kyle: Cenk is viewed as a kindred spirit by many in the Caucus, partly because of his unyielding progressive stance but also because Uygur is no stranger to challenging the status quo.