Truthout - Originals

News in Brief: Daniel Ellsberg, Col. Ann Wright Among 30 Arrested for Protesting Against Abuse of Bradley Manning, and More ...

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:56:57 -0400

Daniel Ellsberg, Col. Ann Wright Among 30 Arrested for Protesting Against Abuse of Bradley Manning

A Modern Medical Disconnect

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:06:12 -0400

Maggie Kozel dreamed of being a doctor when she was a child, but the modern health care system she experienced upended her idealistic view of medicine. In her new book, "The Color of Atmosphere," Kozel writes about her days as a young pediatrician, her Navy experience with universal medicine and the strains of entering private practice.

Public Support for Israel

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:04:48 -0400

In his last year in the White House, George W. Bush promised Israel $30 billion in military aid over the next ten years. Apparently, Barack Obama doesn't think that's quite enough. His new proposed budget ups the ante by $75 million for the next fiscal year. If Congress approves that increase - and when did Israel ever lose in the US Congress? - the average US taxpayer will contribute $21.59 in military aid to Israel in 2011, according to the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. | A Bet on Japan

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 10:01:14 -0400

Washington - Your initial impression of a country is often hard to shake.

Late on my first night in Japan in the 1990s, I was staring out the window of my room on a high floor of a downtown Tokyo hotel. What I saw was a vast, sprawling, modern city of twinkling lights that radiated human and technological energy.

The Evolution Has Come: Time to Put Down the Gun

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:03:52 -0400

The top of the news queue a few weeks ago almost went unnoticed in its ordinariness: "Gunman shoots 4 officers inside Detroit precinct," and "Walmart shooting leaves 2 dead, 2 deputies hurt." It was merely just another day in America, where the "right to bear arms" is bolstered by the tortuous logic that "guns don't kill people, peo

Obama Veto of Peace Process Resolution Rejects International Law

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:02:54 -0400

The US veto of a mildly worded United Nations Security Council resolution supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and reiterating the illegality of Israeli settlements in occupied territories leaves little doubt that, in certain critical respects, President Barack Obama shares his predecessor's contempt for international law.

Two Ghouls

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:00:46 -0400

I've spent the last few days walking around my quiet little Boston neighborhood looking at the houses, the cars, the shops, the trees. I look at my wife, my neighbors, my cat. Then I close my eyes, and in that darkness I see it all wiped out, washed away, obliterated, shattered to kindling and utterly gone. I see a moonscape of annihilation, no reference points in sight, nothing familiar. I see the day after the end of everything, and the horror of it comes nowhere close to the reality that is Japan.

There are no words for this. Only the pictures can tell the tale, but you can't photograph radiation, so even that falls short. It is, quite simply, one of the worst events I have seen in my life, and I am half a planet away.

NPR: The Saga Continues

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 09:57:18 -0400

There’s no more scrupulous or versatile broadcast journalist than NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling. He is one of those reporters who keeps his eye on the sparrow – that is, on small details from individual lives that add up to significant issues of public policy. As he described in a special report this week how the United States Army is clarifying guidelines "that should make it easier for soldiers with traumatic brain injuries from explosions to receive the Purple Heart," it was mind-boggling to think that right wingers in Congress were at that very moment voting to eliminate the modest federal funds that make such essential and authoritative reporting available to anyone in America who cares to tune in.

The UN Security Council Has Not Authorized Regime Change in Libya

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:00:31 -0400

It's a great thing that the Obama administration has resisted calls for unilateral US military action in Libya, and instead is working through the United Nations Security Council, as it is required to do by the United Nations Charter.

Now, the administration needs to follow through on this commitment to international law by ensuring that foreign military intervention remains within the four corners of what the UN Security Council has approved.

Totalitarian Democracy

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:56:49 -0400

What follows is clearly not a thoroughly articulated perspective, but a call to others to present their own understanding of the situation we face.

Those of us who have wondered how fascism would come, if and when it came, did not sufficiently credit the possibility that it would arrive through the process of law and "freely chosen" representatives of the people.