The veteran social activist, drawing upon his own rude political awakening to the realities of Israeli and Middle East politics during the 1980s, warns that the Israel lobby in the U.S. aims to roll back the clock and change the map of the region and that its neoconservative supporters will probably try to use the current Middle East crisis to ignite a larger war against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
When the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund went belly up in 1998, it nearly wrecked world markets. So why are we allowing well-connected Republicans to prevent the SEC from staving off the next catastrophe?
The political satirist reports that the patient asked to be made unconscious again after realizing that the person he was seeing on TV was the real president of the United States, not a “Saturday Night Live” impersonator.
The former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times and author of the bestseller “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” argues in this Truthdig column that the bloodshed now engulfing Lebanon and Israel will only worsen as long as extremists on both sides continue to indulge in “collective necrophilia.”
The gender gap among African-American college students is growing at a dangerous rate. And it’s no wonder: The roots of the problem were obvious at my daughter’s school, where many boys by age 10 had been socialized to be tough, regarding education with contempt and suspicion.
An extremist pro-life organization that helped make doctors the targets of deadly attacks in the 1990s is now mobilizing a protest to shutter the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. With reproductive rights under assault across the country, pro-choice activist Sunsara Taylor reports on the high-stakes battle about to take place in Jackson, Miss.
Shameless plug alert: Truthdig managing editor Blair Golson will be co-hosting a panel on alternative media at this weekend’s DemocracyFest in San Diego. Tickets for the conference are going fast. Panelists and speakers include Howard Dean, Al Franken, comedian Marc Maron, Democratic strategist Dave Sirota and BuzzFlash Editor Mark Karlin.
The arguments for banning the cooking of live lobsters may have their merits, but by making lobster meat just another shrink-wrapped commodity we further disconnect ourselves from the food chain that sustains us.
The senator who would lecture us on ethics drafted a bill in 2005 that made generous giveaways to pharmaceutical companies—one month after his wife went to work in the pharmaceuticals division of a major lobbying and PR firm.
The current push to require voters to supply proof of citizenship at the voting booth has very little to do with preventing illegal voting and much more to do with keeping away from the polls those most likely to vote for Democrats.
Molly Ivins is on vacation. In this column from 2001, she argues that in a country where CEOs make 475 times the salary of their employees, most people’s “economic freedom” is limited to a choice between cinnamon- and mint-flavored toothpaste.
Truthdig’s editor in chief argues that President Bush could defuse the nuclear standoff with North Korea by coddling its attention-starved leader--similar to what Nixon did with China. “Hell, Bush might even empathize with Kim’s desire to escape from the shadow of a father from whom he inherited his crown.”
“Anyone who doesn’t think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers—this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts.”
Is Ned Lamont running a one-issue campaign against Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman? Perhaps. But can you think of any one issue more important than the one in question?
In an interview with Democracy Now!, Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer explains how, after he had spent decades covering U.S. presidents, Bush threw him for a loop: “At least the other [presidents] knew a lot about the world, had experience, had brains about this, cared. This guy had the platinum American Express card and didnt even want to see Paris or London.”
“The question ‘What does Kim Jong-Il really want?’ was definitively answered today when the mercurial North Korean dictator offered to abandon his nuclear weapons program in exchange for the role of the villain in the new James Bond film.”
The United States is apparently considering the use of nuclear weapons to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. How can we contemplate nuking people who might nuke people to show that nuking people is wrong? A veteran nuclear weapons expert at Physicians for Social Responsibility unpacks the apocalyptic irony.
With the superstar rapper (above) boycotting the vaunted champagne company for publicly insulting him, might this be an opportunity to encourage the hip-hop and liquor industries to stop pushing alcohol on kids?
It looks as though “inconvenient truth” is set to join “perfect storm” and “tipping point” in the ranks of superstar catch-phrases. The latest iteration: George Lakoff’s column on the Huffington Post, “Occupation: The Inconvenient Truth About Iraq.”
Are there other instances? Send ’em in via the comments box....
“Can’t you see that everything that’s wrong with this country is because of illegal aliens? It’s all their fault. The people in charge have nothing to do with it.”
While Sen. Joe Lieberman has come clean as a true believer in the Bush crusade, Sen. Hillary Clinton continues to shamefully waffle on the Iraq question, which is particularly galling, given her position as the party’s supposed front-runner.
As we celebrate our Independence Day, let us thank the Supreme Court for granting us deliverance from the tyranny of a president who tried to fashion himself king.
Class Bigotry Mars Auto Debate
