1. “The antiwar movement isn’t dead
Todd Gitlin writes a convincing obituary for an antiwar movementkilled by a thousand blows: crushed by Bush’s pigheadedness, dumped in the media’s black hole, rendered invisible by a volunteer army and drones, overshadowed by more urgent financial crises, chastened by the “unpleasantness” of adversaries from Taliban to al-Qaida to Gadhafi. He leaves out some other daggers to the heart of the movement: grass-roots election campaigns that lured away millions of activists; betrayals by the president and groups like MoveOn who used and abused the antiwar sentiment; craven congressional reps who violate the will of their constituents by continuing to fund war; powerful lobbyists for the war industry who wield enormous power in Washington; and the utter exhaustion that sets in after 10 years of standing up to the largest military complex the world has ever seen.”
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/07/19/antiwar_movement_lives_on
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/07/debt-ceiling-crisis-being-used-as-shock.html
3. “The Famine in Somalia. The Use of Food as an Instrument of Warfare
The drought that threatens more than ten million lives in the Horn of Africa has been made vastly more deadly by U.S. and Ethiopian use of food as a weapon of war. The Americans last year forced the collapse of cooperation between aid agencies and Shabab resistance fighters in Somalia. And Ethiopia, a center of the drought, has virtually sealed off its rebellious Ogaden region from outside observers and aid providers, including the International Red Cross, in order to conceal its brutal, collective punishment of ethnic Somalis.
“The Ethiopian government has blocked the International Red Cross and other aid agencies from carrying out relief work in the region.”
At least 10 million people are in danger of starvation in Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia, under the worst drought conditions in 60 years. This should be taken as fact. But when it comes to which humans are to blame for relief supplies being unavailable to the victims, don’t believe a word that the United States government says. Washington is not only the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, it is also the biggest liar on the planet, none of whose words can be taken at face value.”
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25724
4. “Amid the Murdoch Scandal, There’s an Acrid Smell of Business as UsualThe Guardian of 13 July editorialised about “the kowtowing of the political class to the Murdochs”. This is all too true. Kowtowing is an ancient ritual, often performed by those whose pacts with power may not be immediately obvious, but are no less sulphuric. Tony Blair, soaked in the blood of an entire society, was once regarded almost mystically at the Guardian and Observer as the prime minister who, wrote Hugo Young, “wants to create a world none of us have known [where] the mind might range in search of a better Britain . . .” He was in perfect harmony with the chorus over at Wapping. “Mr Blair,” said the Sun, “has vision, he has purpose and he speaks our language on morality and family life.” Plus ça change.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28651.htm
