World-News

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/18-6

Jesse Jackson Calls Shirley Sherrod a 'True Freedom Fighter' Who Fought Back Against 'Attempted Character Assassination'
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/22-2

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Anti-statists today, torturers tomorrow?

The American Conservative
by Daniel McCarthy

06/21/10

What Dionne and other conventional commentators present as a right-wing coalition that comes together under ’successful conservative politicians such as Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush in his first term)’ but threatens to fracture into extremism when out of power is actually something else: a fairly stable party elite that employs a rhetorical strategy to sell Americans on liberty when the GOP needs to assemble enough votes to reclaim power, but that once in command again doles out privileges to favored interests and conceals the growth of government behind moralistic and nationalistic bombast...

http://tinyurl.com/26xj9fy



Stop coddling the McCarthyite smear machine

Our Future Blog
by Robert Borosage

07/21/10

The right-wing smear machine that cost an exemplary Agriculture Department official her job should be denounced for what it is: a high-tech, low-rent McCarthyism that launches search-and-destroy missions with no purpose but poisonous partisanship. That the Obama administration keeps retreating whenever this hit squad starts strafing someone — firing Van Jones; disassociating itself from ACORN and contributing to its demise; and this week firing Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, over a slanderously edited video — is shameful. It only feeds the appetite of the zealots, with dozens now looking to collect pelts to hang on their walls, and propaganda outlets like Fox News, Limbaugh, and others eager to pile on the next target. It demoralizes those in public service generally. And it puts active progressives … on notice that they may be vulnerable to a random attack, distorting some moment from their past...

http://tinyurl.com/28djpuh



The heroism of Shirley Sherrod

Salon
by Glenn Greenwald

07/21/10

Sherrod’s speech — which caused her to be fired — is simply inspiring in its uncommon candor, courage and wisdom. Few people are willing so publicly to confess to tribal biases and detail how they struggle to overcome them, even though that’s a challenge which any person who evolves at some point must confront. That process — far more than the pretense of having always been bias-free — requires difficult self-examination, and its public discussion offers vitally needed lessons for everyone. Many people are unwilling ever to engage that process privately, let alone candidly describe it publicly. Those with the courage to do so, like Sherrod, should be heralded for that candor. Instead, she was slandered, falsely disparaged, and fired...

http://tinyurl.com/2amu8hp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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