Asmaa Mahfouz

This is the transcript of a speech by Asmaa Mahfouz, posted to the Internet approximately one week prior to the massive Tahrir Square, Cairo rally of the 25th of January. I pulled this from Democracy Now!. There is more information on DN! about Ms. Mahfouz here, and here.

Arundhati Roy on Democracy Now!

Arundhati Roy on Obama’s Wars, India and Why Democracy Is “The Biggest Scam in the World”

We speak with acclaimed Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy on President Obama, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, India and Kashmir and much more. Roy also talks about her journey deep into the forests of central India to report on the Maoist insurgency. [includes rush transcript]

Norman Finkelstein Talks about Israel on Democracy Now!

Norman Finkelstein Responds to Clinton, Netanyahu AIPAC Comments
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told attendees at the AIPAC conference on Monday that the US commitment to Israel is “rock-solid,” but Clinton did criticize Israel for continuing to build settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. In a defiant speech hours after Clinton’s address, Netanyahu rejected US criticism and vowed to continue building settlements. We speak with Norman Finkelstein, author of the new book, This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion. [includes rush transcript]

Mother's Day for Peace

Mother’s Day for Peace: A Dramatic Reading of Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation

"Ahead of Mother’s Day, we play an excerpt of Robert Greenwald’s short film Mother’s Day for Peace. It features a dramatic reading of Julia Ward Howe’s “Mother’s Day Proclamation” by Felicity Huffman, Christine Lahti, Fatma Saleh, Ashraf Salimian, Vanessa Williams and Alfre Woodard. [includes rush transcript]"

David Barstow on Pentagon Pro-War Propaganda Media Campaign | Democracy Now!

EXCLUSIVE…Pentagon Pundits: New York Times Reporter David Barstow Wins Pulitzer Prize for Exposing Military’s Pro-War Propaganda Media Campaign

"In his first national broadcast interview, New York Times reporter David Barstow speaks about his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the Pentagon propaganda campaign to recruit more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as military analysts ahead of and during the Iraq war. This week, the Pentagon inspector general’s office admitted its exoneration of the program was flawed and withdrew it. [includes rush transcript]"

Crusading for a Christian Military

Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman of Democray Now! in Olympia

The War and Peace Report: Democracy Now!

Democracy Now!

From Democracy Now!:

Sen. Sanders Attempts to Block Obama Nominee

In news from Capitol Hill, independent Senator Bernie Sanders is attempting to block President Obama’s nominee to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs employee. Sanders said Gensler had worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in US history. He also worked to deregulate electronic energy trading, which led to the downfall of Enron. Sanders said, “We need an independent leader who will help create a new culture in the financial marketplace and move us away from the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior which has caused so much harm to our economy.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/24/headlines#13

Naomi Klein on the Wall Street Crisis

Naomi Klein on Democracy Now!

October 06, 2008

Naomi Klein: Wall St. Crisis Should Be for Neoliberalism What Fall of Berlin Wall Was for Communism

As the world reels from the financial crisis on Wall Street and the taxpayer-funded $700 billion bailout, we spend the hour with Naomi Klein on the economy, politics and “disaster capitalism.” The Shock Doctrine author recently spoke at the University of Chicago to oppose the creation of an economic research center named after the University’s most famous economist, Milton Friedman. Klein says Friedman’s economic philosophy championed the kind of deregulation that led to the current crisis. [includes rush transcript]

Listen

Naomi Klein, journalist and author of the books The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and No Logo.

Related Links: Naomi Klein's website

AMY GOODMAN: The credit crunch is spreading to financial markets around the world. Nearly 160,000 jobs were lost here in the United States in September. That’s not including losses directly resulting from the financial meltdown. Wall Street might be breathing a little easier since Congress passed the more-than-$700-billion bailout plan Friday, but there are no signs of an easy or quick recovery.Today we take a look back at the economic philosophy that championed the kind of deregulation that led to this crisis. We spend the hour with investigative journalist and author Naomi Klein, bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Naomi Klein spoke at the University of Chicago last week, invited by a group of faculty opposed to the creation of an economic research center called the Milton Friedman Institute. It has a $200 million endowment and is named after the University’s most famous economist, the leader of the neoliberal Chicago School of Economics.

NAOMI KLEIN: When Milton Friedman turned ninety, the Bush White House held a birthday party for him to honor him, to honor his legacy, in 2002, and everyone made speeches, including George Bush, but there was a really good speech that was given by Donald Rumsfeld. I have it on my website. My favorite quote in that speech from Rumsfeld is this: he said, “Milton is the embodiment of the truth that ideas have consequences.”

So, what I want to argue here is that, among other things, the economic chaos that we’re seeing right now on Wall Street and on Main Street and in Washington stems from many factors, of course, but among them are the ideas of Milton Friedman and many of his colleagues and students from this school. Ideas have consequences.

...

Read the rest: Naomi Klein: Wall St. Crisis Should Be for Neoliberalism What Fall of Berlin Wall Was for Communism

Ron Suskind's New Book, White House Lies and Forgery, Congressional Probe: DemocracyNow.org

I just posted at olyblog about Ron Suskind's interview at DemocracyNow.org. Here's a link to the olyblog.net post: olyblog.net/house-judiciary-opens-investigation...

His book is titled, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. The DN interview is in two parts, over two days. The second interview also includes Representative John Conyers, who is the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. The HJC has recently opened a Congressional Probe into the accusations of forgery contained in the Suskind book.

peace

40 Years after the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Global Climate Disruption

From Democracy Now!:

Forty Years After Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, US Tops World in Nuke Arsenal

This week marks the fortieth anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, when nuclear powers agreed to eventually eliminate their nuclear weapons, and non-nuclear states agreed not to seek to develop nuclear weapons capabilities. Forty years later, there are 189 signatories to the treaty and nine nuclear armed states in the world. The United States and Russia still have the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. We speak with Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.
...

And also, climate disruption caused by anthropogenic forces:

Leading scientist John Holdren says ‘global warming’ is not the correct term to use, he prefers ‘global disruption.’ “Global warming] is misleading, it implies something that is mainly about temperature, that’s gradual, and that’s uniform across the planet,” says Holdren. “In fact, temperature is only one of the things that’s changing it’s sort of an index of the state of the climate. The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snowpack, snowmelt, flooding, droughts—temperature is just a bit of it.”

As we continue our discussion on global warming, I am joined here in Aspen by one of the country’s top scientists, John Holdren. He is Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He is also the director of the Woods Hole Research Center, and just completed a term as board chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. During the 1990s he advised President Clinton as a member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. In addition to global warming, John Holdren’s research has focused on energy technology, nuclear nonproliferation and arms control.

John Holdren, professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the director of the Woods Hole Research Center, and just completed a term as board chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

Please see the website: http://www.prosecutionofbush.com/index.php

A SEARING INDICTMENT
Famed prosecutor and #1 New York Times bestselling author Vincent Bugliosi has written the most powerful, explosive, and thought-provoking book of his storied career. As a prosecutor dedicated to seeking justice, he delivers a non-partisan argument, free from party lines, based upon hard facts and pure objectivity. More

“SOMEONE HAS TO PAY”
In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Bugliosi presents a tight, meticulously researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting in Iraq. Watch this video interview to learn why he believes we must bring those responsible for the war in Iraq to justice. More

Also check out Vincent Bugliosi's interview on Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/13/citing_iraq_war_renowned_attorney_vincent

A Candle to the Wind?

Amy Goodman recently wrote of how The USA could have benefitted from an eventual conviction of Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, view points like hers are being stifled more and more in the nation's mainstream media. Here are some excerpts and a link to her article, published at the Seattle PI:

Impeaching, prosecuting Nixon could have elevated the nation

AMY GOODMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST

One of the high points of the U.S. media was the investigation into the Watergate scandal. Now, 30 years later, with President Ford's death, the media are contributing to the cover-up they once exposed.
...
Let's review the history: Nixon was running for re-election in 1972 against anti-war Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota. Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP -- their acronym, not mine) had been conducting a campaign of dirty tricks against potential Democratic presidential candidates. In May and June 1972, Nixon operatives, called "The Plumbers" (so-called as they both plugged up and generated information leaks), broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters, based at The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The burglars, including an ex-CIA man and several Cuban American veterans of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, were planting bugs and photographing documents. An address book on one of the burglars linked them to the White House.
...
John Dean, Nixon's White House counsel, became the star witness of the Senate investigation. He linked Nixon not only to the cover-up, but also to the criminal break-in of the psychiatrist's office of Pentagon whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg. In an exclusive "Democracy Now!" broadcast with Ellsberg and Dean, the two former antagonists spoke together on national television for the first time. They described other dirty schemes planned but not acted on, such as "incapacitating" Ellsberg, and firebombing The Brookings Institution.
...
For Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Nixon's resignation was an opportunity: Ford made Rumsfeld his chief of staff, with Cheney as his assistant. When Rumsfeld moved over to secretary of defense, Cheney became chief of staff. George H.W. Bush was named director of Central Intelligence. Journalist Robert Parry describes the Ford administration as the "incubator" of the current Bush administration.

If those emerging power brokers had witnessed a vigorous prosecution of Nixon and his co-conspirators, it could have elevated the country ... and changed history. Perhaps a decade later, the Reagan-Bush administration would have thought twice about the Iran-Contra scandal, in which an unaccountable administration would defy Congress and illegally support the Contras in Nicaragua, who killed thousands of civilians. Perhaps the current Bush administration would not have dared to manipulate intelligence to invade Iraq, leading to the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

As the nation buries President Ford, let's not let the U.S. media bury the story.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/298235_amy04.html