Press Action

Monday, December 01, 2008

Press Action Dynamic Dozen 2008

Press Action celebrates the most dynamic reporters, authors and commentators of 2008.

Derrick Jensen

Jensen leads the 2008 class of Press Action’s Dynamic Dozen based on his tireless efforts to inspire us — through his books, essays, speeches, correspondence, etc. — to save the planet. This honor may not rank as high as Utne Reader naming him one of the “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World.” Utne Reader says Jensen is the “green thinker and writer who’s out to tell us not what we want to hear but what we need to hear.” Press Action agrees.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 12/01.

Political 'Monsters' Make Peace

"In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio’s the only place they can win. She is a monster, too—that is off the record—she is stooping to anything." - Former Barack Obama campaign adviser Samantha Power speaking in March 2008

Barack Obama announced today he will make uber-hawk Hillary Clinton his Secretary of State and retain current President Bush cabinet member Robert Gates, another uber-hawk, as his Secretary of Defense. Those announcements should finally put to rest any hope that an Obama administration would bring substantive change to the White House on foreign policy issues.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 12/01.

Obama Exploits Liberal Denial

By Mickey Z.

By now, we should expect the soft Left (and more than a few radicals) to gleefully guzzle the Democrat Kool Aid every four years. In 2004, it was Anybody-But-Bush. This year, it was Attack of the Obamatrons. Hey, when you’re a liberal, harboring multiple delusions comes with the territory, e.g.

* Sooner or later, the Democratic Party is gonna wake up and help us “take back” the country.

* No matter what we think of war, we must always support the troops because sooner or later, the men and women in uniform are gonna wake up and help us “take back” the country.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 12/01.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The Humane Society Flexes Its Muscle

Ed Duvin writes at Cyrano’s Journal Online:

Given HSUS’ (the Humane Society of the United States) vast resources and media savvy, they are increasingly perceived by the public as the movement’s voice. There is immense danger in one organization unduly influencing the agenda, as diversity in thought and tactics is the sine non qua of a vibrant movement. Grassroots activists, intellectuals, artists, radicals, students, and all who strive for justice offer a unique language, placing weight on the multifarious pressure points of an apathetic culture. It is difficult to hear other voices when one organization owns the preponderance of microphones.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/25.

The Obama Nation

Bill Van Auken at the World Socialist Web Site writes:

The increasingly right-wing character of the transition being organized in preparation for President-Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration in January has elicited expressions of concern from the middle-class “left.” This milieu, whose views are reflected in publications like The Nation magazine, played a significant role during the election campaign in promoting Obama’s candidacy and the Democratic Party as vehicles for fundamental political and social change. ...

With the political assistance of the trade union bureaucracy and the Stalinist Communist Party ... the Roosevelt administration did succeed in staving off the threat of socialist revolution.

That period holds stark lessons for the coming struggles of the American and international working class. Unless working people are able to advance their own, socialist alternative to capitalism, the “solution” to the present crisis will be found along simil ar lines of a re-division of the world market through mass slaughter.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/25.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Obama Preserves Our Way of Life

By Mickey Z.

Awakened by the muffled, distant howls of slaughtered Indians, Uncle Sam rises from his bed and hits the light switch…blissfully, purposefully unaware of how valley fills enable him to gain access to that electricity day after day.

***

Here’s how The Sierra Club begins its discussion of mountaintop removal mining: “In places like Appalachia, mining companies blow the tops off mountains to reach a thin seam of coal and then, to minimize waste disposal costs, dump millions of tons of waste rock into the valleys below, causing permanent damage to the ecosystem and landscape.” That is a valley fill.

Then comes word—on October 18, 2008—that the Interior Department has “advanced a proposal that would ease restrictions on dumping mountaintop mining waste near rivers and streams, modifying protections that have been in place, though often circumvented, for a quarter-century.” This from a New York Times article, which continues: “The department’s Office of Surface Mining issued a final environmental analysis Friday on the proposed rule change, which has been under consideration for four years. It has been a priority of the surface mining industry … The proposed rule would rewrite a regulation enacted in 1983 that bars mining companies from dumping huge waste piles, known as “valley fills,” within 100 feet of any intermittent or perennial stream if the disposal affects water quality or quantity.”

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/23.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

A New Stone Age or the Same Old Stonewalling?

Myron Ebell, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s point man on energy and environmental issues, thinks we’re heading back to the Stone Age if the climate change legislation proposed by Henry Waxman, the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is adopted.

“This should provide a loud wake-up call to American business leaders that the 111th Congress is not going to play nicely with them on energy rationing policies. The cap-and-trade bill that Chairman Dingell proposed this fall would dramatically raise energy prices for American consumers and producers. Chairman Waxman, who represents Beverly Hills, introduced a cap-and-trade bill in this Congress that would send us back to the Stone Age,” Ebell said in a Nov. 20 statement after the Democrats voted to replace automobile industry water boy John Dingell with Waxman as head of the committee.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/22.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

'Vegetarian' Vampires Show No Mercy

Imagine if Stephanie Meyer had written about a family of vampires who feed only on the blood of merchants of death, those sinister types found in corporate offices, on military bases and in other places of ill repute in Washington state. What a powerful message Meyer could have sent her millions of female teenage readers: the good vampires of the Cullen clan neutralize the Pacific Northwest fat cats, defense contractors and environmental despoilers, making the region a safer and more livable place for future generations.

Instead, Meyer thinks the best way to make her “good” vampires more likable to her rabid teenage fans is to turn them into “vegetarian” vampires — in the case of the Twilight series of books, though, vegetarian means the vampires only abstain from hunting humans. The wild animals that roam the woods of the Pacific Northwest, however, are fair game for the “good” vampires’ next meal.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/20.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Obama and the Great Depression

By Mickey Z.

No, I don’t mean that Great Depression. I’m talking about the inevitable moment—maybe next week, maybe next year—when the Kool Aid wears off and the Obamatrons wake up to realize their hero offers nothing even approximating hope or change.

The carefully calculated speeches—which have always been filled with empty, hollow phrases—will no longer soothe a battered and desperate populace and the Obamabots will suddenly recognize that the Pope of Hope has never been anything more than a human marketing strategy, a product. This year’s iPhone.

“Yes we can”? Merely the first three words of a longer phrase: “Yes we can continue to work, consume, and obey authority without question.”

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/19.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Spinelessness of Lesser Evilism

The Democrats are spineless. It’s a familiar refrain we hear from some liberals and many leftists. When Democrats support rancid proposals of Republican presidents or fail to aggressively challenge the implementation of odious policies, the spineless term gets trotted out.

Only yesterday on Democracy Now!, Canadian author and social democrat Naomi Klein used the anatomical metaphor during a discussion of the Democrats’ reluctance to challenge the Bush administration on its handling of the $700 billion giveaway to Wall Street.

“So, essentially, what the Bush administration has done is said, you know, ‘We dare you to challenge us and be responsible for the great depression.’ And the Democrats, not known for their firm spines, have so far failed to challenge them in anything other than rhetoric.”

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/18.

Monday, November 17, 2008

News Flash: Obama Hypnotizes Zinn

By Mickey Z.

Let’s say the New York Times hired a charismatic black man in his late 40s to run the newspaper and this popular man promised change. And let’s say I wrote an article that talked about what this man should do, what I hoped he’d do. For example: reduce the business section to a page, add a labor section, start covering people’s movements and protests, refuse advertising dollars from corporations that pollute, and hire me to run the op-ed page. Justifiably, I’d be called delusional and I’d be ridiculed for even suggesting such insane expectations.

Let’s say Perdue hired a charismatic black man in his late 40s to run the company and this popular man promised change. And let’s say I wrote an article that talked about what this man should do, what I hoped he’d do. For example: renounce the chicken slaughter business, shift operations to selling organic, locally-grown vegan food, and donate vast amounts of money to farm sanctuaries. Justifiably, I’d be called delusional and I’d be ridiculed for even suggesting such insane expectations.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/17.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

In Search of Compassion during Prime Hunting Season

Here’s an excerpt from an impassioned anti-hunting piece published by Cyrano’s Journal Online and authored by David Irving:

Hunting is called a sport. In this so-called sport we pit 10,000 years of civilization and technological advance against creatures that have zero years of technology behind them and possess no means other than their natural instincts by which to defend themselves. The odds are enormously stacked against them. We put out cruel leg-hold traps, lay out decoys, spot and stalk, bait with rotting animal flesh, hide behind blinds or in tree stands, and hunt animals in fenced-in areas where it is impossible for them to escape. Except for expert marksmen, perfect shot placement is a rarity, especially for non-professional hunters and for shots taken at a distance. The consequence is that animals are often shot more than once to try to kill them. They die miserably. Many flee wounded into the woods, as noted above, where they also suffer prolonged, painful deaths. A biologist with the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish, and Parks estimated that more than 3 million wounded ducks go unretrieved every year.

For the full article, please click here (warning: disturbing graphic images accompany article).

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/16.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Obama's First 100 Days Promise Bold, Radical Action

Press Action just received a draft copy of President-elect Obama’s agenda for his first 100 days in office. This draft agenda, received from a trusted source inside the Obama transition team headquarters in Chicago, outlines the top 10 priorities of the Obama administration, effective Jan. 20, 2009.

The document is breathtaking in how the list of priorities goes against almost everything Obama promised (or avoided discussing) during his campaign for president. Kudos to Obama! Let’s hope the reactionary forces in Washington don’t derail these initiatives. Please distribute widely and do whatever you can to support Obama as he works to implement these bold, yet perfectly reasonable, initiatives when he takes office. If this is what he’s planning to implement during his first 100 days in office, imagine what he has planned for his remaining time in office. Here’s the list of priorities. Read it and weep with joy!

1. Immediately cease all military operations in Iraq. Order military commanders to ensure all combat military personnel are transported back to the United States within 30 days. Order military commanders to begin the process of dismantling any infrastructure constructed as part of the occupation of Iraq. U.S. civilian and military leaders must coordinate with Iraqi officials and the public on keeping in place any infrastructure that the Iraqis could use for their benefit. The dismantling of all infrastructure must be completed by July 1.

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Comments (1) | Posted on 11/15.

Some Things Are Bigger Than Any of Us

By Mickey Z.

“One of the good things about everything being so fucked up—about the culture being so ubiquitously destructive—is that no matter where you look—no matter what your gifts, no matter where your heart lies—there’s good and desperately important work to be done.”
- Derrick Jensen

In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed and both Northerners and Southerners were now legally required to turn in runaway slaves. One year later, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin (or Life Among the Lowly) as a serial in an antislavery paper, The National Era. In 1852, the Boston publishing company Jewett published it as a book and, as they are wont to say, the rest is history.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/15.

Do You Still Consider Yourself an Anarchist?

During the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Bill O’Reilly instructed one of his flunkies to confront Bill Ayres outside his home in Chicago about his ties to Barack Obama. Along with urging Ayres to repent for his work as a member of the Weathermen and Weather Underground, the O’Reilly flunkie asked Ayres if he still considers himself an anarchist.

Ayres didn’t answer the question or respond to any of the other on-camera taunts, except to ask the O’Reilly flunkie to respect his property as he headed to his front door.

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Comments (0) | Posted on 11/15.