 Some interesting articles from the past week:
- Homecoming: Lovely writing from former Time/Newsweek writer Hal Crowther in the Progressive Populist,
describing how the conservative agenda is turning America's heartland
into a wasteland, and why its inhabitants can't see what they have
wrought on themselves. [Thanks to Doc Searls via Jon Husband for the link]
- Turn Your Back on Bush: A clever, subtle plan for street theatre during the next Bush coronation... er... inauguration. [Thanks to Jet of assesofevil for the link]
- Collecting Proof of Election Fraud in Florida & Ohio: For conspiracy enthusiasts from Black Box Voting
-- evidence that the vote was rigged in the two states that made the
difference in last week's elections. I put this in the same category as
the evidence that the World Trade Centre Towers could not have
collapsed simply by being struck by airplanes, and the evidence that
Bush knew in advance of the attacks and did nothing -- far-fetched, but
just plausible, and fascinating reading, with staggering implications
if they're true. [for more of the same, read Greg Palast's column]
- Let Them Drink Coke:
In Atlanta, per the NYT, if you don't pay your water bill, you get your
water shut off. Sounds reasonable, until you actually talk to the
people affected, discover why they can't afford to pay, and realize
what cruel hardship such action produces. Only in America, where the
ultimate crime is being poor.
- The Power of Nightmares:
The BBC is running a 3-part series on how fear-mongering works, and how
the strategy of the US neocons and the strategy of Al Qaida are
indistinguishable: Exaggerate the problem, oversimplify the cause, set
up a straw man enemy, inflate that enemy to terrifying proportions,
blame moderates for the enemy's success, and grab enormous power and
authority from the fear-struck populace. Viewers in most of Europe and
North America can get the BBC -- keep an eye out for the series. [Thanks to Ahmed at WorkingPlanet for the link]
- World Council of Churches abhors US churches' political interference:
The international group seems to appreciate two things that American
politicans and religious zealots don't: (a) why the founding fathers of
most democracies, religious men to a fault, insisted on the clear
separation of church and state in their constitutions, and (b) that
when a few religious groups interfere in a strongly partisan way in the
political process, it compromises the credibility of all religious
groups everywhere, and in particular puts the lives of brave
humanitarian workers who toil under horrendous circumstance in the
world's trouble-spots, working under the auspices of the world's
churches, in grave peril.
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