THE HEADLINES: July 3, 2009

 

CHALMERS JOHNSON: BASELESS U.S. EXPENDITURE FOR EMBASSIES AND MILITARY BASES WILL SPEND U.S. EMPIRE INTO BANKRUPTCY.

Recent announcement, almost ignored by the press, that the U.S. would be spending many millions of dollars to build a Vatican-sized embassy in Pakistan, highlights a new twist on a very old story: that of "over-extended" empires which bankrupt themselves by such expenses for "administering" their empires.  Chinese lenders who hold the bank-notes on the funding of these extravagances are awaiting loan defaults to create "the end of the United States as we  know it."

 

HONDURAN COUP: FIRST THEY CAME FOR TELESUR

As a military coup by conservative political forces got underway in Honduras, agents went quickly to the offices of Telesur, a TV network operated by liberal or "Bolivarian Alternative" countries in Latin America, to shut down operations and remove employees for interrogation and beating.  A similar fate awaited employees of the station operated by the deposed Honduran leader Zelaya, as the media coverage of the event reverted to agencies like CNN and BBC, which could be relied on mostly to ignore the coup. 

 

AMERICAN APPAREL GETS VELVET GLOVE TREATMENT FOR ITS EMPLOYING OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS.

A "new approach" by federal immigration enforcement agents is put on display in actions against a Los Angeles t-shirt manufacturer which employs hundreds of undocumented at relatively favorable wages and produces a popular pro-immigrants t-shirt with caption "Legalize LA."  In place of the heavy-booted immigration raids which were hallmarks of Bush administration enforcement, AA receives notices that it must come into compliance with laws against employment of such workers.  Fines for companies and deportations for workers may yet be the ultimate outcome of this "softer" enforcement approach. 

 

WHO'S THAT MARCHING IN ARNE DUNCAN'S PARADE FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

Why, notes Bruce Dixon, you will find in that parade such unlikely marchers as traditionally stalwart supporters of public education: black civil rights organizations and teachers' unions.  In the case of African American "leaders" like Al Sharpton, it looks very much as if their marching in that parade is encouraged by a nice pile of federal grant dollars, and the Secretary of Education has at this sole discretion billions of  "stimulus" dollars to dispense to those school systems willing to fall into step with his plan to "turn around" American schools by mass firings and privatization of the nation's schools.

 

RELAX, KIDS! THERE'S NO PRESSURE ABOUT THOSE FCAT RESULTS.

Well, maybe not.  Alachua County FL school board moves to replace principals of two Gainesville elementary schools whose students collectively earned "F" grades from results of Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests. (We're with the program, Arne Duncan; next off we may have to close those schools and replace them with charters.)

 

 

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The Sun State Activist Has A New Home For Original Opinion And Insight:

PRINCIPLED PROGRESSIVE

Now on Principled Progressive...

FREEDOM RIDER: DANGEROUS PROGRESSIVES

By Margaret Kimberley

 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Michael Jackson is dead, and we are told the cause of his death is a mystery. But there’s no mystery. This enormously gifted and sad man died of a lethal Amurrikan disease many call TMTS (Too Much Too Soon), and the terminal qualities of his chronic disorder began to manifest long before he actually passed. Many who denied the immensity of the man’s talent will cry crocodile tears now, and many of those folks are people who, just a week ago, were more than eager to castigate his outwardly bizarre behavior, which, even at a glance from this far away, was clearly a symptom of an isolated emotional and mental illness which went untreated all the man’s days.

But that’s Amurrika. Amurrika has always set up its idols for a moment, only to make a public spectacle of their human frailty when Amurrika believes it can sell enough trash magazines and other forms of cultural offal. Michael Jackson, like Freddie Prinze, John Belushi, Janis Joplin, and many others before him, fell into the workings of TMTS, and got ground up in the gears of the machine. Not that the machine really cares. You can hear the scavengers gnawing on bones all the way to the bank from any vantage point where you stand.

michael hureaux perez, writing under by-line of Eshu's Blues for Black Agenda Report

 

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS (7/2):

 

FLORIDA

 

For more news and headlines from recent days, go to

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SSA Events page.

 

MISSION

The Sun State Activist is a website for all Floridians of progressive political leanings---that is, all those who believe that, through intelligence, commitment and concerted action we can make a difference toward realizing a humane world, country, state and local community. In many of its dimensions the site will be of benefit to progressives outside Florida.

 

ORGANIZATION OF THE SITE

The website divides the universe of progressive interest into some 95 topics and sub-topics and provides website and other links to organizations and events related to each topic as well as a source of information from various publications, websites and electronic media.

 

 

TOPIC DESCRIPTIONS

  1. GENERAL PROGRESSIVE ACTION deals with those organizations and individuals who have broad agendas of progressive social action; with progressive organizations such as the Green Party and Progressive Democrats of America; with progressive magazines like The Nation and on-line outlets such as Common Dreams.Org; with connections to alternative radio, television, book and film outlets.  

2. PEACE AND WAR is the website of the peace activist and those seeking to understand the causes of war and militarism. It deals with large peace initiatives like a proposed Department of Peace; with the imperialist foreign policy of the United States, including the Iraqi/Afghan war; with 9-11 and the “war on terror;” with the influence of the military/industrial complex on foreign policy and with military recruitment and procurement; with weapons both conventional and nuclear and weapons in space.  

3. ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES deals with the conservation and enhancement of natural resources; control of pollution of our land, waters and air; with environmental regulation and the destruction of environmental habitats with economic development; with animal rights; with natural disasters (their causes and with public responses to them.)  

4. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT deals with the effort to compromise the needs of economic development with the “human” need for relatively small-scale enterprises; with agri-business and big box stores as symptoms of unbalanced development; with the development of alternative energy sources that do not destroy our environments and ways of life.  

5. CIVIL RIGHTS deals with a wide range of groups of people who suffer discrimination or denial of their constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; among others, with blacks, Latinos, Asians, indigenous peoples, gays and lesbians, children, elderly, convicted felons who have served their sentences, immigrants, “terrorism” suspects.  

6. ECONOMIC JUSTICE deals with the issue of inequality of opportunity among different groups of people; with poverty, wages and unemployment; with worker’s rights to organize; with affordable housing and the homeless; with taxation and budgets; with globalization and corporate dominance; with retirement security.  

7. MEDIA ISSUES deals with the integrity of our media in their coverage of issues of progressive interest, including elections and issues that arise in the course of decision-making; with the related issue of corporate control of the media, including the issue of consolidation of media ownership.  

8. ELECTORAL ISSUES deals with how and whether our political processes are actually democratic in that they allow the will of the people to be expressed; with electronic voting systems and their effects on election outcomes; with manipulations of the voting system like re-districting schemes designed to benefit vested interests; with alternate voting systems better designed to reflect the will of the people in voting outcome.  

9. CRIMINAL JUSTICE deals with issues concerning the effects of incarceration, the death penalty, mandatory sentencing and other harsh sanctions on the kind of society we are trying to develop; with drug policy and other issues of criminalization; with due process in encounters of suspects with police and courts.  

10. ETHICS: GOVERNMENTAL, CORPORATE, PROFESSIONAL deals with political scandal, especially as it relates to the influence of money and corporate power on political decision-making; with efforts at campaign finance reform; with issues of corrupt corporate officials whose practices compromise the interests of their employees and the public.  

11. HEALTH CARE deals with issues of quality and delivery of medical facilities to whose needing them; with inequality in same;