I love you moring no. Its a coffee drinking pleasure. (4.00 / 2)

Well sometimes not so much a pleasure, but satisfaction that I am getting some touches on the stories I must not miss, so thanks.

Its very hard to comment on however as its sooo big and so diverse. Single issue stories create a path to response (I hate this and we should... I love this etc...) this style of reportage wont get the same number of responses that list them individually would inspire.. but here are some of the thoughts your links produced...
On Romero.. during this time it wasnt just Romero that was killed.

The slogan "Be a Patriot - Kill a Priest" was written on many walls, indicating that the Catholic priests who had sided with the country's poor were also a target for the death squads that terrorised the country.

Here is Bianca Jagger accepting the Right Livelihood Award in 2004:

On another memorable 11th of September, that of 1973, hunter jets attacked the presidential palace in Santiago Chile with the backing of Nixon's administration and the help of the CIA, General Augusto Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende. This was only the beginning of a 17-year long regime of terror in Chile. More than 3100 people died, countless thousands were tortured. And 1100 remain 'disappeared' to this day.

From 1979 to 1992, the US supported a series of governments in El Salvador, which resulted in the brutal death of over 70,000 people. The Salvadorian army murdered in cold-blood Archbishop Oscar Romero. His assassins were never brought to justice. Three American nuns and a missionary were raped and shot in the head by five Salvadorian soldiers.

During Christmas in 1989, The US invaded Panama to overthrow the discredited former CIA agent, General Manuel Noriega who had now become an enemy. They killed 5,000 civilians in the process, and buried them in mass graves.

We must all learn the history that's missing, even our very recent history. VietNam was only an example.

One of our nations true living and working heroes Representative Lewis:

(a national leader in the struggle for civil rights.

Lewis was instrumental in organizing student sit-ins, bus boycotts and non-violent protests in the fight for voter and racial equality. He endured brutal beatings by angry mobs and suffered a fractured skull at the hands of Alabama State police as he led a march of 600 people in Selma, Ala. in 1965.

Wiki Link

"Over its 59 years, the SOA has trained over 60,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, "disappeared," massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins."

In 2007 the McGovern/Lewis Amendment was six votes away from stopping all funding to the School of the Americas. With this week's march on Washington, DC and increased pressure from protests maybe this will get Obama's approval to close the School of the Americas. With the recent closure of Guantanamo Bay humans rights activists are hopeful President Obama will close the infamous school. It was highly discussed and requested on his transition website www.change.gov so it just may get some attention this year.

It would be fitting on this the 30th anniversary of Bishop Romero's slaughter to help our very real hero Rep. Lewis pass his Act closing the School of the Americas. It was only six votes away last time.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

---

by: HousesofProgress @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 08:20:04 AM CDT

"love your morning no" --grrr (4.00 / 1)

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

---

by: HousesofProgress @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 08:20:41 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Did you catch this: (4.00 / 3)

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2...

wherein Glenn Beck attacks John Lewis for, erm, comparing himself to civil rights activist? If you need a laugh with your coffee and "No," it's a must see.

---

by: sb @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 08:28:51 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Thats effing great! (0.00 / 0)

This "republican cohort in full retreat" is very exciting. We must pound and pound and pound until that set of crazies has been put to pasture in their state's retirement homes.

Pound them each and every day, expose them as the venal fools they are, stop their lies. Pass new legislation, solve the problems of the day, save the country, save the world.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

---

by: HousesofProgress @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 08:46:49 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

My Concern (4.00 / 1)

The new health insurance reform bill is going to make the health industry so much money that it's unlikely they'll ever rally around the GOP plan to repeal it.

I worry this $50 billion a year gravy train to the private health insurance companies will short-circuit Medicare buy in, that the industry will demand all future insureds go private instead of public. Then again, it appears the privatized government student loan program has been un-privatized recently. Perhaps there is hope.

Thanks for another great Morning No.

---

by: TSlavin @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 08:30:59 AM CDT

The opposite is true. (4.00 / 4)

"I worry this $50 billion a year gravy train to the private health insurance companies will short-circuit Medicare buy in,"

Every time they say the mandate is evil, we must say louder, "Then lets open Medicare!" Pay the mandate into medicare and fund America's greatest treasure. We must remove the law that prevents funding Medicare and saving it. We must end the rules that prevent American citizens from using their subsidy to fund our Medicare system!

Open Medicare to receive the federal subsidy! Fund Medicare NOW!

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

---

by: HousesofProgress @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 08:43:28 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I sort of question Chloe's elision of "gender as performance" with (0.00 / 0)

"beauty as performance." Perhaps she could have addressed "feminine beauty as socially constructed in 2010 as performance," but as it is, she's been rather problematically reductive. And her line, "There's nothing more natural than nudity?" Erm, not so much. There are about 10,000 holes in that particular bit of logic.

I tend, anyway, to be of the Judith Butler school that emphasizes gender performativity as opposed to performance. Per Butler,
"It is important to distinguish performance from performativity: the former presumes a subject, but the latter contests the very notion of the subject."

That starts to get rather too complicated to delve into in a brief blog post. And no doubt that's in part where Chloe's coming from, but that is precisely why one should make an effort to keep one's terms and constructs clean. I understand that Feministing is striving for accessibility, but that doesn't make it appropriate to dumb concepts down into intellectual Swiss cheese.    

---

by: sb @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 09:11:14 AM CDT

I'm not sure I'm of the Judith Butler school (4.00 / 1)

I think I'm more in the Poly Styrene camp.

---

by: Pesto @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 09:46:39 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I understand you havce a problem with her insight. (0.00 / 0)

But I have absolutely no idea what that objection might be. Nor what Judith Butler was on about, nor even, and I am sorry here, what "contests the very nature of subject means" all of which makes ,

but that is precisely why one should make an effort to keep one's terms and constructs clean.

and

but that doesn't make it appropriate to dumb concepts down

so very problematic.

It does make me want to read more of what all the women mentioned are on about, and so I will.

--

The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky

---

by: HousesofProgress @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 09:52:40 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

"Health Care Industry" =/= Insurance Corporations (0.00 / 0)

There is a bit of bait and switch going on at FDL.  They talked about the boon to insurance corporations, but the data doesn't support that; "mixed" they say.  Now they talk about the boon to the "Health Care Industry", which is mostly hospitals and the drug companies.

Well duh, fixing the donut hole in Plan D is a boon to the drug companies and bringing 30 million into the system instead of just using the emergency room is a boon to hospitals.

---

by: Mark Matson @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 12:37:23 PM CDT

As I understand it (0.00 / 0)

Pharma is a big winner here. All the more for the issues that rarely came up - like ensuring objectivity in clinical trials, funding well-controlled trials, and head-to-head comparison of pricey and low-cost (or non-pharmaceutical) therapies.

Plus, the insurance companies and physicians will take the heat, while they are fairly secure in the shadows.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

---

by: SpitBall @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 13:45:55 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Ideally (0.00 / 0)

We'd take the insurance companies' profits and slice it up.  The American people get some.  Doctors and nurses and hospitals and other health care providers get a cut.  Pharma and other manufacturers of medical goods get a cut.  

Divide and conquer.

And later, down the road, we slice up pharma.

So, I have no problem if pharma benefits from this bill.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

---

by: Anthony de Jesus @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 14:52:30 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

re: d & c (0.00 / 0)

step 1 (slice up insurance companies profits) sounds good

problem is it makes step 2 (slice up pharma profits) more difficult

---

by: The Big Hurt @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 22:45:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Pharma (4.00 / 3)

That is my take as well.   I know there are some comparative medicine and IT upgrades in the bill, all within Medicare at the momement, that might step on Pharma's toes a bit, but not by much.

We seriously need neogtiated drug prices for Medicare, with the ability to re-sell to those not on Medicare.  Importation is kind of stupid (import socialism!) but would work as well.

---

by: Mark Matson @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 17:42:53 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'm just slightly inside this particular aspect of the system (0.00 / 0)

the status quo is very much intact.  

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

---

by: SpitBall @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 21:51:35 PM CDT

[ Parent ]