How to turn Congress Inc. back to just Congress

By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Washington Post
Wednesday, May 12, 2010

What is the biggest scandal of 2010 so far?

Allegations of fraudulent misrepresentation from Goldman Sachs? An oil spill that poses a threat to our environment and economy for generations? Mining operators freely ignoring safety violations and treating workers as disposable?...

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Actress Q’orianka Kilcher on Climate Change Activism: Public Figures and Celebrities “Have a Responsibility to Help Give a Voice to the Voiceless”

DemocracyNow!
April 20, 2010

Thousands of indigenous groups, grassroots activists and environmentalists began streaming into the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth in Tiquipaya, Bolivia on Monday. Among them was the award-winning young Hollywood actress, Q’orianka Kilcher. “I really believe, and love, the saying ‘there comes a time when silence is betrayal,’” Kilcher says. “As public figures and as celebrities, we have a responsibility to be able to help give a voice to the voiceless.”

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On Languages of Power and Powerlessness

Sunday 07 March 2010
by: Zygmunt Bauman,
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Zygmunt Bauman is arguably the most important living sociologist in the world. And yet his work has not been given the recognition it deserves in North America. Bauman is one of those rare intellectuals who not only addresses many of the major theoretical insights and paradigms of our time, but also uses them as a resource to examine, critically engage and respond to many of the social problems facing the globe today.

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by Jeff Severns Guntzel
Utne
January 28, 2010

How you can use the open-source software TOR to volunteer your computer for global privacy....

How to Stop Complaining and Start Improving Government

Utne

...In the next three months, the Technology for Transparency Network will produce 32 case studies of different good-governance projects and 16 blog posts highlighting other projects...The network plans to challenge project leaders to figure out how their work could create concrete, offline change...

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25 Intelligent Optimists

Jurriaan Kamp | Jan/Feb 2010 issue
Ode Magazine

Ode asked 25 famous people–Hollywood actors, prominent politicians, scientists, authors–to nominate their favorite Intelligent Optimist, a person who isn't famous but should be for his or her work to create a better world. The result: 25 inspiring profiles of changemakers you've never heard of–yet...

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Prosecutors Target Northwestern Journalism Students Working on Exonerating Wrongfully Convicted Prisoners

DemocracyNow!
January 12, 2009

Prosecutors in Chicago are targeting a group of Northwestern University journalism students who have helped exonerate eleven wrongfully convicted prisoners, including five on death row. Cook County prosecutors have subpoenaed Northwestern and the Medill Innocence Project to hand over student grades, grading criteria, class syllabi, expense reports and email messages. Prosecutors are focusing on the students who conducted a three-year investigation into Anthony McKinney, who was convicted of fatally shooting a security guard in 1978. A judge is now reviewing McKinney’s case...

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Jews raise voices for brutalised Gaza

By Linda S. Heard
Online Journal
January 6, 2009

...All those who stepped out of their comfort zones during the holidays to support the people of Gaza should be commended. But Epstein, Benjamin, Kasrils and Gottlieb, along with the other Jews who joined the march, have exemplified humanity’s best; people willing to prove the courage of their convictions even if this means encountering hostility from their own communities...

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Egypt Denies Gaza Freedom March Access to Border, Hundreds Protest in Cairo

DemocracyNow!
December 29, 2009

In Egypt, hundreds of solidarity activists from around the world are being prevented by the Egyptian government from entering Gaza. Dubbed the Gaza Freedom March, organizers were planning to cross the border last Sunday to commemorate the first anniversary of Israel’s assault on Gaza that killed 1,400 Palestinians and thirteen Israelis. We get a report...

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Rich-Poor, North-South Divide Marks COP15’s Opening Week

DemocracyNow!
December 11, 2009

As debates between rich and poor nations over emission cuts and funding continue on this fifth day of the COP15 climate summit here in Copenhagen, we begin with an overview of the week’s developments. The rich countries have proposed a climate fund of $10 billion a year from 2010 to 2012 to help developing countries adapt to climate change. Poor countries say that is too little. We hear from the climate negotiators from India, China, and Association of Small Island States, and get analysis from Kate Horner of Friends of the Earth.

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On 20th Anniversary of Killings of 6 Jesuit Priests by US-Backed Salvadoran Forces, Thousands to Protest “School of the Assassins” at Ft. Benning

DemocracyNow!
November 20, 2009

Thousands are gathering at Fort Benning in Georgia this weekend for the annual protest to shut down the US Army training center dubbed by critics as the “School of the Assassins” for having trained some of the worst human rights violators in Latin America. This year’s protest will mark the twentieth anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador by the US-backed Salvadoran military. It comes days after the priests were posthumously bestowed El Salvador’s highest civilian award, marking the first time the Salvadoran government has honored the priests since their deaths. To talk about the priests and the overall state of Latin American affairs, we’re joined by Blase Bonpane, director of the Office of the Americas. A former Maryknoll priest, he has worked for more than four decades to promote human rights in Latin America...

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What Have We Done to Democracy?

by Arundhati Roy
Web Exclusive, October 2009
Utne Reader

Of Nearsighted Progress, Feral Howls, Consensus, Chaos, and a New Cold War in Kashmir...

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Tell Your Senators You Want Patriot Act Reform

American Civil Liberties Union
September 23, 2009

After eight years of the Patriot Act and the expansion of the government’s power to spy on Americans, we have an opportunity to bring the Patriot Act in line with the Constitution.

Our best chance of reforming the Patriot Act is making sure the Senate stongly supports the Feingold JUSTICE Act. Action on this critical issue could take place at any moment. Please contact your senator now and ask them to become a co-sponsor of the JUSTICE Act.

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Part II: Tim Robbins on Activism in Hollywood from the 1930s to the Present

DemocracyNow!
August 27, 2009

Tim Robbins is the artistic director of the Actor’s Gang and an Academy-award winning actor, director, producer, and writer.
He won an Oscar for his role in “Mystic River” and is well-known for his roles in numerous films over the past two decades including “The Shawshank Redemption”, “The Player”, “Bull Durham”, and “Bob Roberts.” His best known directorial ventures include the award-winning “Cradle Will Rock” and “Dead Man Walking.”

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Meet dogs and young men saved from dogfighting

Humane Society of the United States

There is so much that tears at our hearts in this bloody realm of dogfighting. But we must look forward and reach these kids before they step into the quicksand of street fighting. When we see the positive effects of our program, it is magical. A few of these moments are captured in our slideshow. None of us wanted to imagine that fate that awaited so many of these dogs. But then our experts and community organizers stepped in and ushered in a dramatically different outcome.

If you care about ending dogfighting, this is the program to get us there.

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Greenpeace: Getting in People’s Faces and Getting Results

by Keith Goetzman
August 6, 2009
Utne

The environmental group Greenpeace often publicly shames corporations for their environmentally destructive ways, but it also works with them to improve if they have a change of heart as it has done with Kleenex, Nike, and Timberland.

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True-life superheroes, now in comic books

Heather Wax | May 2009 issue
Ode Magazine

Is it a bird? A plane? No, it’s Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama... and Mahatma Gandhi, Anne Frank and Nelson Mandela. Read all about them in the Japanese comics promoting positive messages...

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Why is Tom Daschle undermining President Obama's health care plan on national television?

Credo Action

Tom Daschle was President Obama's pick to be Secretary of Health and Human Services - and with his extensive healh care background, many lauded this as an excellent choice. Who knew he'd sell public health care down the river a few months later?

Of course, the nomination went south after it came to light that Daschle had over $100,000 in unpaid taxes on such things as a private car and full-time driver. So Daschle went back to his gig as one of the founders and board members of the Bipartisan Policy Center - a DC think-tank that Daschle founded with Bob Dole and two other former senators. And guess what? The BPC has extensive funding ties to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

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Protect Your Drinking Water From Toxic Chemicals

Earth Justice
June 13, 2009

Did you know that the oil and gas industry, thanks to Dick Cheney and his old friends at Halliburton, are exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act?

That's right: thanks to a provision slipped into the highly-controversial Energy Policy Act of 2005 at the request of Halliburton, Exxon and a handful of other corporations, the oil and gas industry was exempted from having to comply with critical provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act—a law that protects underground sources of drinking water for millions of Americans.

This exemption has allowed hydraulic fracturing—a process that increases oil and gas yields by shooting an oftentimes toxic brew of chemicals underground at high pressures—to go completely unregulated by federal law.

Hydraulic fracturing is already suspected of endangering drinking water in six states. However, due to the "Halliburton Loophole" exemption, EPA lacks the authority to investigate instances of contamination and cannot regulate this controversial practice.

Thankfully, concerned members of Congress in both the House and Senate have recently introduced legislation to close the "Halliburton Loophole" and ensure that Big Oil has to follow the same laws that every other industry does.

H.R. 2766, introduced by Diana DeGette (D-CO), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Jared Polis (D-CO); and S. 1215 introduced by Bob Casey (D-PA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Please contact your congressperson and senators and ask them to cosponsor these important pieces of legislation. Click on Title above...

Tell top shoe brands to protect the Amazon and the climate

GreenPeace
The Amazon rainforest is one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. But destroying the rainforest for cattle products does more than destroy the ecosystem — it’s also a major source of global warming pollution.

Deforestation causes 20% of the world’s global warming emissions. That’s more climate pollution than all of the world’s cars, trucks, trains, planes, and ships combined. The Brazilian cattle industry is responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Amazon, making it the largest single driver of deforestation in the world — and therefore the largest single driver of greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in the world.

Brazil’s cattle industry is producing leather that could end up in popular shoe brands like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, and Timberland.



Take action >> Urge Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Timberland, Clarks, and Geox to refuse to buy leather that's killing our future.

These popular brand names have the power to make a difference in the Amazon, and so do YOU. We can’t allow shoe producers to run the Amazon into the ground. Please take action now.
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