Article published in Amauta with permission from the author

Source: Truthdig

(AP / Chris Carlson)

by Chris Hedges
March 1, 2010

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 money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened. Read the full story

Source: GRITtv

February 25, 2010

The Bush administration thrived on secrecy; Obama promised more transparency, but has yet to really deliver. What’s more, when information does come out, it seems that accountability is nearly impossible to get: the torture memos were released, but there will be no trials.

We ask Daniel Ellsberg, one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers, if there’s anything the people can do to take the power back.

Article published in Amauta with permission from the author

(Scott Olson / Getty Images file)

by Harvey Wasserman

The mystery has been solved.

Where is this “new reactor renaissance” coming from?

There has been no deep, thoughtful re-making or re-evaluation of atomic technology. No solution to the nuke waste problem. No making reactors economically sound. No private insurance against radioactive disasters by terror or error. No grassroots citizens now desperate to live near fragile containment domes and outtake pipes spewing radioactive tritium at 27 US reactors.

No, nothing about atomic energy has really changed.

Except this: $645 MILLION for lobbying Congress and the White House over the past ten years. Read the full story

Article published in Amauta with permission from the author

Source: The Guardian

(Image: Troy Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: EssG, Ericskiff Sirkullay)

by Mark Weisbrot
February 18, 2010

In a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week, Hillary Clinton said that Iran “is moving toward a military dictatorship,” and continued the administration’s campaign for tougher sanctions against that country.

What could America’s top diplomat hope to accomplish with this kind of inflammatory rhetoric? It seems unlikely that the goal was to support human rights in Iran. Because of the United States’ history in Iran and in the region, it tends to give legitimacy to repression. The more that any opposition can be linked to the United States’ actions, words, or support, the harder time they will have.

Second, it is tough for anyone – especially in the region – to believe that the US is really concerned about human rights abuses. In addition to supporting Israel’s collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza, Washington has been remarkably quiet as the most important opposition leaders in Egypt were arrested as part of the government’s preparations for October elections. Amnesty International stated that the arrestees were “prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their peaceful political activities”. Read the full story

Traducción del artículo en español abajo

Article published in Amauta with permission from TomDispatch and the author

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Aaron Escobar ♦ (the spaniard)™, safety superhero)

Source: TomDispatch

by Tom Engelhardt
February 15, 2010

Let me put American life in the Age of Terror into some kind of context, and then tell me you’re not ready to get on the nearest plane heading anywhere, even toward Yemen.

In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI.  In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire.  More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil. Read the full story

Article published in Amauta with permission from TomDispatch

Source: TomDispatch

The New Deal, by Conrad A. Albrizio (1934)

How the Obama Administration Ended Up Where Franklin Roosevelt Began

by Steve Fraser
February 11, 2010

On March 4, 1933, the day he took office, Franklin Roosevelt excoriated the “money changers” who “have fled from their high seats in the temples of our civilization [because...] they know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers.  They have no vision and where there is no vision, the people perish.”

Rhetoric, however, is only rhetoric.  According to one skeptical congressional observer of FDR’s first inaugural address, “The President drove the money-changers out of the Capitol on March 4th — and they were all back on the 9th.” Read the full story

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Read the original version (in English) below

Traducción: Loles Oliván, Rebelión

por Ramzy Baroud

La costumbre de los medios de comunicación de volver a revisar ciertas cuestiones a intervalos regulares de tiempo puede parecer extraña e incluso a veces ilógica. Por ejemplo, muchas agencias de noticias han hecho comentarios acerca de los primeros cien días de gobierno del presidente Obama así como del aniversario de su victoria electoral y, nuevamente, después del día de su toma de posesión. A cada número redondo se han sumado más comentaristas y han tenido lugar acaloradas discusiones entre los partidarios y los detractores de la actuación de su gobierno. Read the full story

Source: The Nation

Illustration by Steve Brodner

by William Greider
January 28, 2010

When citizens shake off their resignation and rebel against the political elites, Washington reacts as if a dread new disease has risen from the swamp of public opinion. Spin doctors are on the case, prescribing various “cures” to inoculate the governing order against this virulent strain of flu. The White House senior adviser says he needs better “data” to warn Democrats against any more upsets like the Massachusetts senatorial election. The president revives popular ire as a speech theme, trying to go two ways at once. For the right, he promises a freeze on spending. For the left, he talks up jobs and his anger at Wall Street. Bankers are out. The people are in.

The Washington Post calls it a “populist brushfire,” and pundits explain why our sudden rowdiness is irrational, possibly dangerous if not swiftly contained. What a rare moment to behold–we’ve got their attention! Read the full story

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Also read below: New Defense Strategy Envisions Multiple Conflicts

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The U.S. Army, Thomas Hawk, lepiaf.geo)

by Norman Solomon

This isn’t “defense.”

The new budget from the White House will push U.S. military spending well above $2 billion a day.

Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.

“Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors,” the New York Times reports this morning (February 2).

It isn’t defense to preclude new domestic initiatives for a country that desperately needs them: for healthcare, jobs, green technologies, carbon reduction, housing, education, nutrition, mass transit . . . Read the full story

Article published in Amauta with permission from the author

by Harvey Wasserman

Amidst utter chaos in the atomic reactor industry, Team Obama is poised to vastly expand a bitterly contested loan guarantee program that may cost far more than expected, both financially and politically.

The long-stalled, much-hyped “Renaissance” in atomic power has failed to find private financing. New construction projects are opposed for financial reasons by fiscal conservatives such as the Heritage Foundation and National Taxpayers Union, and by a national grassroots safe energy campaign that has already beaten such loan guarantees three times. Read the full story