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Goose's Alternative News Links |
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| Jesse Burkhardt |
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
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I. Outstanding News and Editorial Aggregators II. Essential E-Zines III. The Blog-o-shpere / Feeds IV. Favorite Firebrands V. Important Issues |
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I know that this compilation is woefully short, but I wanted to create a brief highlight of my favorite alternative news and editorial links. Some are widely known to many and some are relatively obscure.
| Outstanding News and Editorial Aggregators | |
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Common Dreams: http://commondreams.org
Perhaps the best clearing house for all nature of alternative news and editorials both sydicated and affiliated. |
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AlterNet.org: http://alternet.org
AlterNet.org is a project of the Independent Media Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening and supporting independent and alternative journalism. - AlterNet.org |
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truthout: http://truthout.org
A wonderful aggregator with email subscription based alert highlights, energetically edited by Boston school teacher William Rivers Pitt. |
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The Crisis Papers: http://crisispapers.igc.org
A trove of material from outside the mainstream. A real sleeper of a site that has some of the most creative contributions of commentary from academicians and other concerned citizens. |
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TomPaine.commmon sense: http://tompaine.com
A public interest journal inspired by the great patriot Thomas Paine. |
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WorkingForChange: http://workingforchange.com
It offers opinion, news, and action opportunities for people with progressive values. |
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Center for Cooperative Research: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org
Not exactly a news aggregator, but an in depth site revealing the shocking truth in the form of elaborate timelines. |
| Essential E-Zines | |
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The Nation: http://thenation.com
The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred. -- from The Nation's founding prospectus, 1865 |
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CounterPunch: http://counterpunch.org
A terrific aglomeration of some of the most candid and in depth assessments government abuses as they happen, edited by The Nation contributor firebrand Alexander Cockburn. |
| The Blog-o-shpere / Feeds | |
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SmirkingChimp.com: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/
An excellent enacspsulator of syndicated news stories, with message boards, etc. |
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TomPaine.commmon sense blog: http://www.tompaine.com/blog.cfm
A compact daily reference to various web based media nuggets. |
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xymphora: http://xymphora.blogspot.com
A radical anonymously maintained rant about whatever is topical about the abuses of our own government. The author is unafraid of interpreting his own exhaustive data analyses into conspiracy machinations. This blog is a gold mine of both conventional and unconventional links to stories and web sites containing news typically overlooked by the rest of us. This man does his work and has provided an valuable timesaver for those of us who like to go off the well beaten media path. |
| Favorite Firebrands | |
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Noam Chomsky: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm
I believe that this man requires no intrduction. |
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Ralph Nader: http://www.nader.org/public_interest.html
Someone else who requires no intrduction. |
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Paul Krugman: Krugman NY Times archive search
The NY Times leading gadfly columnist, who is a trained economist teaching at Princeton. (Krugman is one of my heros.) |
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George Monbiot: http://www.monbiot.com
A very insightful Guardian columnist who has some creative solutions as to the containment of empire. |
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Greg Palast: http://www.gregpalast.com/columns.cfm
An award winning American expat who works for the BBC and contributes to the Observer. He has become a very important source of information. |
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Thom Hartmann: http://www.thomhartmann.com
A radio journalist who has authored over a dozen books. Hartmann has incredible insight into history and its relavance to contemporary events. He is beautifully articulate, a pleasure to read. |
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Chris Floyd: http://empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/
He writes the weekly Global Eye political column for The Moscow Times and St. Petersburg Times. His work also appears in The Ecologist, The Nation, CounterPunch, Christian Science Monitor, Bergen Record, Columbia Journalism Review ... |
| Important Issues | |
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Black Box Voting: http://www.blackboxvoting.com
In my opinion, this is one of the most important issues of our time. Paperless, auditless computerized voting has already proven itself to be quite fraudworthy. Bev Harris, the author of the book, Black Box Voting, has tirelessly tried to make the public aware of the fact that we may all be disenfranchied of our votes in the very near future. |
| Some Special Essays | |
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2005/06/14: In the American Bunker by David Michael Green, June 14, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
"Somewhere in America, on the highest perches of a tall mountain, a small rock has begun its descent, bringing others down with it. This rock was loosed by the release of a secret memo far across the Atlantic, but its path has been prepared by years of political deceit, arrogance, and aggression at home and abroad. The avalanche it has precipitated is at this moment gaining mass and velocity at a fast-growing rate. Its ultimate destination is Pennsylvania Avenue, in the American capital, though it remains unclear whether it possesses sufficient energy to carry that far." |
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2005/05/20: Carpooling with Eichmann by Joe Bageant, May 20, 2005 by smirkingchimp.org
"... Eichmann slept well at nights, the same as most of us, unaffected in appetite. He would have made a good carpooler, telling us all about the kids and grandkids as we commute the monotonous asphalt strips to and from our jobs, creating the paper work and the information products and the commerce of the fatherland, that great sprawling circuit board one sees from airplanes. Like Eichmann, we are efficient, productive, and most terribly of all, untroubled by guilt. Oblivious as gravestones. Sane." |
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2004/07/23: Journalism Under Fire by by Bill Moyers, Address to the Society of Professional Journalists Saturday, September 11, 2004, New York City
"The job of trying to tell the truth about people whose job it is to hide the truth is almost as complicated and difficult as trying to hide it in the first place. Unless you’re willing to fight and refight the same battles until you go blue in the face, drive the people you work with nuts going over every last detail to make certain you’ve got it right, and then take hit after unfair hit accusing you of 'bias', or these days even a point of view, there’s no use even trying." |
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2004/07/23: The Oil We Eat - Following the food chain back to Iraq
by Richard Manning, originally in Harper's Magazine February 2004
"[W]e humans, a single species among millions, consume about 40 percent of Earth's primary productivity, 40 percent of all there is. This simple number may explain why the current extinction rate is 1,000 times that which existed before human domination of the planet. We 6 billion have simply stolen the food, the rich among us a lot more than others." |
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2004/06/30: Is It Safe?
by Larry Beinhart
"[W]e never performed our experiments on anyone for the purpose of inflicting pain. Believe me, I am a doctor, I got no pleasure from their pain. The reason we were putting the subjects in ice water to see how fast they froze was to help defend the homeland, after all we had men fighting on the Russian front and it was important to know this. Mr. Rumsfeld and his lawyers seem to understand that such behavior is not torture because the purpose was not to inflict pain but to gather necessary information" |
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2004/05/25: The Covert Kingdom -
Thy Will be Done, On Earth as It is in Texas by Joe Bageant
"... Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia, a college exclusively for Christian homeschoolers, offers programs in strategic government intelligence, legal training and foreign policy, all with a strict, Bible-based 'Christian worldview.' Patrick Henry is so heavily funded by the Christian right it can offer classes below cost. In the Bush administration, seven percent of all internships are handed out to Patrick Henry students, along with many others distributed among similar religious rightist colleges. The Bush administration also recruits from the faculties of these schools ..." * You may want to cross reference Jesus Plus Nothing. |
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2004/05/12: Cold Turkey by Kurt Vonnegut
"And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals. ... We’re spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call 'Native Americans.'" |
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2004/04/07: The Third World War is Now by Prince El Hassan bin Talal (brother of the King of Jordan), Globe and Mail, Canada
"Make no mistake that this is a world war, albeit not like any we have seen before. The conflict is not being fought by regimented armies of men, but by individuals and by small terrorist cells on our streets and in our homes. The human race has now reached such a point that we are arguing the merits of killing a half-blind man in a wheelchair on one side, and the blowing up of 200 innocent Spanish citizens on their way to work on the other." |
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2004/03/26: Eating Fossil Fuels by Dale Allen Pfeiffer, The Wilderness Publications
"Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%. That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation." |
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2004/03/19: Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism Step 1: Look in the Mirror by Kathy Kelly, Common Dreams
"One young journalist said a more seasoned correspondent had told her to talk with me when she was ready to do a humanitarian story. One of the first stories she pursued was about a baby who’d been born in one of Saddam Hussein’s prisons. I suggested she might also explore stories about the hundreds of thousands of children who died because of economic sanctions. 'Oh,' she said, 'That was Saddam Hussein’s fault.'" |
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2004/03/16: Terror and Taboo in the Homeland by Ira Chernus, Common Dreams
"Most terrifying of all, after the next attack we will still live under the Great Taboo, the unspoken rule that forbids us to talk about the only question that really matters: Why do they hate us? What can we do to reduce their desire to attack us?" |
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2004/03/12: Democracy - Not "The Free Market" - Will Save America's Middle Class by Thom Hartmann, Common Dreams
"In actual fact, there is no such thing as a "free market." Markets are the creation of government. ... Governments provide a stable currency to make markets possible. They provide a legal infrastructure and court systems to enforce the contracts that make markets possible. They provide educated workforces through public education, and those workers show up at their places of business after traveling on public roads, rails, or airways provided by government." |
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2004/03/02: Return of a Conundrum by Jeremy Rifkin, The Guardian
As Technology Devours Jobs at an Increasing Rate, the Conflict at the Heart of the Market Economy is Becoming Irreconcilable: "If dramatic advances in productivity can replace more and more human labor., resulting in more workers being let go from the workforce, where will the consumer demand come from to buy all the potential new products and services? " |
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2004/03/01: The Fire This Time in Haiti was US-Fueled by Jeffry Sachs
"The US position was a travesty. Aristide had been elected president in an indisputable landslide. He was, without doubt, the popularly elected leader of the country -- a claim that President George W. Bush cannot make about himself." |
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2003/12/03: Bush's Operation Clean Sweep - A Nightmare Scenario by John Stanton
"... it seems certain that Bush will make it back to the Oval Office through the back door that is the Electoral College. And if not the Electoral College then by benefit of a rebel attack on US soil which kills thousands of Americans and leads to the suspension of the US Constitution. That according to General Tommy Franks, USA (Ret.), who opined in the magazine Cigar Aficionado that the US will have to shed its constitution in favor of a military style of government." |
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2003/12/03: Feeling More Secure, Yet? - Bush, Security, Energy and Money by Stan Goff (US Army Retired)
"The Bush administration, itself composed predominantly of energy industry insiders, has cynically invoked (information) 'security' to conceal this degradation of domestic security, to attack government and corporate whistleblowers, and to protect the enormous energy conglomerates from accountability." |
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2003/12/01: A New Kind Of Poverty by Anna Quindlen (Newsweek)
"America is a country that now sits atop the precarious latticework of myth. It is the myth that working people can support their families." |
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2003/11/14: An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq by Stan Goff (US Army Retired)
"When you take away the humantiy of another, you kill your own humanity. You attack your own soul because it is standing in the way." |
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2003/10/12: US Soldiers to America: Bring Us Home Now Interviews by Jay Shaft, Coalition For Free Thought In Media
"The following interview was with an enlisted man, but someone very high up in the enlisted ranks, with over 20 years of military service. I have promised not to reveal his identity for reasons that he has a family and has been told not to speak to journalists. He told me the Army had put a gag order on him while he was home, and told him they would give him twenty years in prison if he spoke out in any manner against the US or the government." |
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2003/09/24: Three Days in NYC Jails
by Bryonn Bain, The Village Voice, September 24 - 30, 2003
"Black = Terrorist = Thug: The New Racial Profile?" - An outrageous first hand accounting of a hideous confluence of incompetence and racism rigidly forged into bureaucratic machinery; a real life, Kafka-esque nightmare in miniature. |
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2003/09/17: Come Out Fighting by Rick Perlstein, The Village Voice, September 17 - 23, 2003
"...Going negative against him, early, even right out of the box, might be not just a winning strategy. It will also be the patriotic thing to do. Just ask Rand Beers." |
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2003/09/11: A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW with Paul Krugman, New York Times Columnist
"...If there's regime change in 2004, and the new man actually manages to steer us away from the disasters I see in front of us, then we'll probably be talking a lot about the long boom that was begun during the Clinton years, and how it was resilient, even to an episode of incredibly bad management. ... But I don't think that's the way it's going to play out, to be honest. Whatever happens in the election, I think that we've done an extraordinary amount of damage in the last three years." |
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2003/09/06: This War on Terrorism is Bogus by MP Michael Meacher, UK Environment Minister from 5/97-6/2003
The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination. ..."Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power." |
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2003/07/31: Prison Bitch by Steve J. B.
An incredibly moving tale about an unspeakable horror happening on a very large scale in America. |
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2003/07/30: The Theft of Your Vote Is Just a Chip Away by Thom Hartmann
Are computerized voting machines a wide-open back door to massive voting fraud? |
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2003/07/07: The Late, Great, American Republic:
A Report from Mid-Century -- 2050 by Ernest Partridge
This should scare the shit out of you: "The following is an imaginary essay by an Oxford University historian at mid-21st century. It assumes a continuation of current political and economic trends set in motion by the Bush Administration." |
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2003/04/22: The Bottom Dollar by Geroge Monbiot, Guardian columnist
The way to check American power is to support the euro. ...Almost 70% of the world's currency reserves - the money which nations use to finance international trade and protect themselves against financial speculators - takes the form of US dollars. ...Only one further development would then be required to unseat the dollar as the pre-eminent global currency: nations would need to start trading oil in euros. |
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March 2003: Jesus Plus Nothing by Jeffry Sharlet, special for Harper's Magazine
Under cover among America's secret theocrats: It reveals a frightening comingling of religion, power, finance which have been at the reins of government far longer than most of us can imagine. A perfect picture of facism justified by religious dogma. What happens when a bunch of latent gay policy wonks sublimate their unnameable desires into theocracy? |
