Video series: The human toll of the BP blowout
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 15:27 — Dave Culver
The BP blowout has devastated the economy, environment and health of the entire Gulf region. World Socialist Website (WSWS) reporters C. W. Rogers and Andre Damon interviewed residents, small businessmen and environmental and health experts on the Gulf coast and compiled this video report.
• Part 1—The economic impact
• Part 2—The effect on human health
• Part 3—The social impact
• Part 4—The environment
• Part 5—Residents respond to the disaster<>
Where has all the Navy money gone?
Tue, 07/27/2010 - 07:49 — Dave CulverU.S. Navy Veterans Association (USNVA) Minnesota Chapter took $1.56 million out of Minnesota from 2004-2009 and mysteriously dissolved last May under threat of legal liabilities. Its national commander is a top contributor to Michele Bachmann and has since disappeared.
Karl Bremer
Submitted by Evergreene Digest Contributing Editor Coleen Rowley
Out of more than $1.14 million the U.S. Navy Veterans Association Minnesota Chapter claims to have spent on charitable programs and services in Minnesota since 2004, only $26,300 can be positively accounted for: two $10,000 donations to a St. Paul Veterans Center in 2007 and one $6,300 donation to Twin Cities Public Television in 2008.
The rest of the money from the organization that went to benefit individuals was allegedly spent to provide such generic things as “direct cash assistance,” food, clothing, publications, “care packages” for service members, and “psychological counseling and comfort” for survivors of veterans. But there is little evidence or documentation of those services in records filed with the state or IRS. Furthermore, the officers for the Minnesota Chapter of the USNVA cannot be found, nor can any address for the group other than UPS drop boxes be located.
Secret files show true Afghanistan war
Mon, 07/26/2010 - 08:15 — Dave Culver- A six-year archive of classified military documents released Sunday (July 25) by an Internet organization called WikiLeaks offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the Afghanistan war that in many respects is more grim than the official portrayal.
- Afghanistan: The War Logs
- Six Facts No War Supporter Knows
Accidents are tied to drones such as this MQ-9 Reaper, with laser-guided munitions and Hellfire missiles. LTC Leslie Pratt ? USAF/NYT
A six-year archive of classified military documents made public Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the Afghanistan war that in many respects is more grim than the official portrayal.
The secret documents, released by an Internet organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.
The New York Times, the British newspaper the Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the voluminous records weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday (July 25).
Related:
Dear Obama, Learn From Shirley Sherrod and Stop Letting the Right-Wing Propaganda Machine Win
Fri, 07/23/2010 - 10:43 — Dave Culver- Strike one was Van Jones. Strike two was ACORN. Now Shirley Sherrod had become strike three. When will the administration stop cowering before right-wing propaganda?
- White House 'Inexplicably Keeps Falling For' Fox News Stunts
- The shame of right-wing "journalism"
Terrance Heath, AlterNet
“It hurts me that they didn’t even try to attempt to see what is happening here, they didn’t care.”
-- Shirley Sherrod, on her forced resignation from USDA within hours of the right-wing media airing a heavily edited video of Sherrod speaking at an NAACP event. The edited video purportedly portrayed Sherrod and the NAACP as racist; the full video of Sherrod’s speech showed otherwise.
Dear Mr. President,
Wars Don't Make Heroes
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 10:03 — Dave CulverBy making our military a league of heroes, we ensure that the brutalizing aspects and effects of war will be played down. In celebrating isolated heroic feats, we often forget that war is guaranteed to degrade humanity. “War,” as writer and cultural historian Louis Menand noted, “is specially terrible not because it destroys human beings, who can be destroyed in plenty of other ways, but because it turns human beings into destroyers.”
William Astore, TomDispatch
Consider a strange aspect of our wars since October 2001: they have yet to establish a bona fide American hero, a national household name. Two were actually “nominated” early by the Bush administration -- Jessica Lynch, a 19-year-old private and clerk captured by the Iraqis in the early days of the American invasion and later “rescued” by Army Rangers and Navy Seals, and Pat Tillman, the former NFL safety who volunteered for service in the Army Rangers eight months after 9/11 and died under “enemy” gunfire in Afghanistan.
