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Does Saturday’s U.S.-Taliban Deal Mean Peace for Afghanistan?
“The war in Afghanistan has been a mirror for the United States for the last 40 years — the dysfunction of the U.S. political system, America’s failed war on drugs, the prioritization of war over all else, and the blowback from ignorant and arrogant decision-making is revealed through the war in Afghanistan as a fundamentally American story. By no means has the U.S. endured the costs that Afghanistan and its people have endured, yet it should be lost on no one that Afghanistan is as much an American story as it is anything else.”
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Sanders, Organizing and South Carolina
“The Democratic machinery lined up for Biden. But his message does not address the pain of our people. I’m not sure what moderate means [if] people don’t have affordable health care. I’m not sure what moderate means to us. As a matter of fact it means very little to us.”
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Corporate Media-Run Debates Pushing for Militarism
“Moderators in South Carolina speaking in a hall where people paid thousands of dollars to enter perpetuation the claims of U.S. government officials, that have been disseminated without supporting evidence (that Russia is helping Bernie Sanders for example). They questioned how withdrawing troops would help security — without questioning how continuing U.S. wars would help security. They questioned in the strongest terms the conduct and trustworthiness of other countries — China, Cuba, Russia, Syria — which is fine in principle except the U.S. establishment and its allies are effectively immune from any meaningful scrutiny whatsoever. Rather, U.S. government action and…
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Sanders’ Legislative Record: “Amendment King” and Left-Right Alliances
A regular accusation from more establishment candidates of Sen. Bernie Sanders is that he is rigid and doesn’t get practical legislation done. This view is seriously contested by some who have followed his career most closely. Greg Guma writes: “In Congress he became known as the ‘amendment king,’ passing more amendments than any other member of Congress during his years in the House of Representatives. That impressive record, somehow ignored by the same politicians and pundits who decry a lack of bipartisan cooperation, began with an amendment to launch a National Program of Cancer registries, now maintained by every state.…
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Why U.S. Would Be “Better Off Without Billionaires”
“Living under an oligarchic system, we should develop a healthy skepticism of the actions of billionaires, whether they are running for office, bankrolling other candidates or giving billions to charity. If we want to make the bold investments we need to expand the middle class, lift up workers and protect the environment, we’ll first need to protect our democracy from extreme billionaire influence. At the very least, that means campaign finance reform, targeted taxes on the very wealthiest Americans and reforming philanthropy. And ultimately, it means having fewer billionaires.”
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Sanders and Cuban Literacy Rate
James Counts Early said today that an additional aspect of Cuba’s success on literacy has been the “global export of the Cuban literacy model to developing countries around the world, and to underdeveloped communities in developed countries.” … Early noted “the damaging U.S. blockade which all but literally a few countries in the world condemn.”
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Israel’s Racism and Harboring Suspected Assassins Who Fled from U.S.
“An additional extraordinary thing is that the Trump ‘Peace’/Apartheid plan gives Jews the rights to pray on Haram al-Sharif, which is the very issue that Baruch Ben Yosef (one of the suspected assassins of Arab-American activist Alex Odeh) has been singularly focused on for the last 30 years. That’s how bonkers the plan is, it rewards the extremist demands of Alex Odeh’s alleged assassin.”
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Goodale on Assange Case: “Wake up, American Press!”
In an interview with Kevin Gosztola yesterday, James C. Goodale said: Assange is “performing for all practical purposes, and particularly for all legal purposes, all the functions of a journalist. So come on. Wake up, American press! This guy is doing enough of what you’re doing so that, when he’s penalized for what he’s doing, the penalties are going to come back and get you. Wake up! … And what’s really bad is the United States is going to end up with an Official Secrets Act, by which leaking not only is criminalized but receiving leaks in the capacity of…
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Should Employees Sit on Corporate Boards? What is a Corporation?
“The stock market is an institution that enables owner-entrepreneurs to stop being owner-entrepreneurs, passing the control over management of the company to employees. Public shareholders who hold shares for a yield and who can easily sell those shares at any moment on a liquid stock market should not have ownership rights. Workers have a far stronger claim to call the company theirs, although workers can come and go. I would go for a trusteeship model of governance of publicly listed companies rather than a stakeholder model. That raises the questions of the purpose of the corporation as a public trust,…
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Is Public Actually Behind a Ban on Fracking?
“Unfortunately, much of the media narrative pushes the notion that presidential candidates who call for a ban on fracking will lose swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. There is absolutely no evidence that voters actually feel strongly about supporting the fossil fuel industry; in fact, in Pennsylvania, strong anti-fracking candidates are winning elections. There is no doubt that voters want to support candidates who offer bold solutions. The media discussions of the campaign should welcome this discussion, instead of declaring it a liability.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn