Truthout: 22 August 2011
"The Mouse That Roared": How Disney Instills Greed and Consumerism - Starting at Three Months
Martha Sorren, Truthout: "Cuddly cartoon animals and whimsical fairy-tale stories are merely Disney's public face ... It
also owns six motion picture studios, ABC television network and its 226 affiliated stations, multiple cable television
networks, 227 radio stations, four music companies, three cruise lines, theatrical production companies, publishing
houses, 15 magazine titles and five video game development studios ... Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock explore this
relationship between consumer and industry in their book 'The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence.'"
Jubilation Sweeps Tripoli as Rebels Hunt Desperate Qaddafi
Suliman Ali Sway, Hannah Allam and Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers: "The long, brutal reign of Col. Moammar
Gadhafi appeared to collapse Sunday as rebels swept into Tripoli, captured three of his sons and set off wild street
celebrations in a capital that he'd ruled by fear for more than four decades, Libyan and NATO officials said."
On the News With Thom Hartmann: Republicans in Congress Work to Strip Wall Street Reform, and More
Thom Hartmann, The Thom Hartmann Program: Moammar Qaddafi's grip on power in Libya has slipped as rebel forces swept
into Tripoli to bring down Qaddafi, the Fed secretly gave more than $1.2 trillion in virtually interest-free loans to
big banks in 2008, Charles Koch defends billionaires, Republicans in Congress work to strip Wall Street reform, Bill
McKibben arrested in peaceful demonstration to oppose massive 1,700-mile-long pipeline to bring tar sands oil from
Canada to refineries in Texas, and more.
Activists Kick Off Protests Against Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline (Video)
Tar Sands Action: Bill McKibben, Natural Resources Defense Council co-founder Gus Speth and LGBT activist Lt. Dan Choi
led a group of climate activists in the first day of what will be a two-week-long daily protest at the White House.
Billionaire Koch Responds to Buffett, Refuses Call for Shared Sacrifice
Lee Fang, ThinkProgress: "Warren Buffett penned an op-ed last week declaring that America's super-rich have been
'coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.' Lamenting the numerous tax loopholes and special breaks
afforded to billionaire investors, Buffett noted that in his entire career, even when capital gains rates were as high
as 39.9 percent, he never saw anyone 'shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential
gain.' Charles Koch, head of the massive petrochemical, manufacturing, and commodity speculating Koch Industries
corporation, has responded to Warren's call for shared sacrifice: 'No Thanks.'"
John Pilger | Damn It or Fear It, the Forbidden Truth Is There's an Insurrection in Britain
John Pilger, Truthout: "For the young at the bottom of the pyramid of wealth and patronage and poverty that is modern
Britain, mostly the black, the marginalized and resentful, the envious and hopeless, there is never surprise. Their
relationship with authority is integral to their obsolescence as young adults. Half of all black British youth between
the ages of 18 and 24 are unemployed, the result of deliberate policies since Margaret Thatcher oversaw the greatest
transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in British history. Forget plasma TVs, this was panoramic looting."
After Bruising Political Fights, Two Governors Alter Their Tones
Monica Davey, The New York Times News Service: "After Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican in his first months in office,
announced early this year that he wanted to cut collective bargaining rights for public workers, relations between
political parties in his newly red State Capitol fell into a long, deep frost. But after six months of bruising partisan
fights, Mr. Walker seemed to issue an utterly different message this month. He said he wanted to meet with Democrats and
to find shared agenda items - an invitation that has been met with polite acceptance and deep skepticism."
Austerity Politics Descends on US States
Richard D. Wolff: "Last week, Democratic Governors in New York and Connecticut repeated the austerity politics of
Greece's Prime Minister Pappandreou and Portugal's Socrates. In doing so, they likewise imitated the austerity politics
of their Republican and Democratic counterparts across virtually all 50 states. Austerity for labor and the public is
everywhere capitalism's Plan B. Even capitalists now see that capitalism's Plan A failed."
Dean Baker | Why Is President Obama So Anxious to Cut Social Security?
Dean Baker, Truthout: "On his tour of the Midwest last week, President Obama again indicated his interest in cutting
Social Security. He repeated a proposal that his administration first put forward in the debt ceiling negotiations: he
wants to cut the annual cost of living adjustment by 0.3 percentage points. This cut may sound small, but it adds up
over time."
Assad Says He Rejects West's Call to Resign
Anthony Shadid and Nada Bakri, The New York Times News Service: "President Bashar al-Assad of Syria dismissed American
and European calls for him to step down as 'meaningless' on Sunday, and he declared that Syria's ailing economy could
withstand escalating international sanctions. In an interview with Syrian television, Mr. Assad hardly mentioned the
hundreds of thousands of protesters this summer who have posed the gravest challenge to his family's four decades of
rule."
Mystery of Qaddafi's Whereabouts Looms Large in Conflict's Endgame
Rick Gladstone, The New York Times News Service: "For all his bluster and bombast over the past four decades as Libya's
quirky ruler, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was mysteriously and conspicuously absent as forces of the six-month-old Libya
rebellion encircled what they believed to be his ultimate Tripoli hideout, the Bab al-Azizya compound."
Rick Perry Moves to the Right on Immigration
Robin Abcarian and Maeve Reston, The Los Angeles Times: "Immigration advocates in Texas were heartened last year when
the Republican governor, Rick Perry, flatly stated that Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants 'would not be the
right direction for Texas.' But in June, Perry convened a special session of the Legislature, hoping to pass a measure
outlawing sanctuary cities - places where police are not allowed to ask people they detain about immigration status."
From Sacrilege to Sacredness: What's the Big Deal About Snowmaking?
Mary Sojourner, New Clear Vision: "I would tell you that I stood on this mountain that the Dine call Dook'o'oosIId and
watched a Navajo apprentice healer touch a boulder as tenderly as he might have touched his child, but I worry that you
might relegate me to the long-gone New Age. And if I tell you that I heard a Dine woman say that disrespecting the
Mountain is a form of genocide, 'because the health of the Dine men is linked with the Mountain; and the health of the
Mountain is linked with their health,' I hope you would listen with an open heart."
TRUTHOUT'S BUZZFLASH DAILY HEADLINES
Rick Perry believes that he has earned respect for being a man so brazen that he didn't even blink when confronted with
the apparent fact that he executed an innocent man. Indeed, he grew even more defiant as exculpatory evidence grew.
And, then, Perry made sure that the details of his eagerness to kill the "convicted" - but apparently innocent - man,
were covered up by dissolving an investigation into the state killing of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Only a man with "guts," who carries a laser-sighted handgun with deadly, hollow-point bullets - even when he jogs with
his security detail - could take pride in dismissing the Texas State murder of a man who wasn't likely guilty. As one
person in a focus group on Perry, commissioned by a GOP gubernatorial primary opponent, crowed with admiration: "It
takes balls to execute an innocent man."
A New Yorker article revealed that the investigating commission, before Perry dissolved it, found that the primary evidence against
Willingham, "seemed to deny 'rational reasoning' and was more 'characteristic of mystics or psychics.'"
Justin Elliott of Salon believes that Perry's unapologetic execution of Willingham may have actually helped Perry beat Kay Bailey Hutchison
when she challenged him in 2010:
Perry went on to cruise to a 20-point victory in the primary and an easy win in the general election.
[It] leaves one wondering, did the controversy actually help him in the GOP primary? If Perry jumps into the
presidential contest, don't expect his primary rivals to bring up this old case ...
Some wags have joked that Perry is George W. Bush without a brain. Perhaps, Perry's pride in signing the death warrant
for Willingham shows that he is also George W. Bush - who set a record for assembly-line executions in Texas - without a
heart.
That's kind of like being Genghis Khan without the compassion.
Mark Karlin
Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout
Juan Cole: Top Ten Myths About the Libyan War
The First US Nuclear Power Plant to Gain a License in Over a Decade Is Scheduled to Go Online Next Year
Civil Disobedience on Tar Sands Begins Outside the White House
Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Secret Fed Loans
Tone Deaf: Romney to Nearly Quadruple His Mansion's Size
Another Protest at San Francisco's BART Train System Against Police Shootings
Will Clarence and Virginia Thomas Succeed in Killing Obama’s Health Care Plan?
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