GEORGE LAKEY: I just returned from a research trip to Norway where the people I interviewed often brought up the topic of our new President. The first was Kristin Clemet, the director of a conservative think tank. “This spring on a delegation to Washington I was struck again,” she said, “by how different the political spectrum is in Norway from your country. Here, Obama would be on the right wing.” I checked her view with others — academics, politicians, activists all over the Norwegian spectrum — and all but one agreed. In Norwegian terms, our President’s positions are very conservative.
Letters to the Editor
This month’s letters to the Editor: 1) Vote With Your Dollars Against Chevron ; 2) Mountaintop Removal Protest Prompts Bail Money Request; 3) ACES Bill Too Watered Down to Support; and 4) Voice of the People? Not.
Now We See You, Now We Don’t: The Human Cost of Drone Attacks
KATHY KELLY: In early June, 2009, I was in the Shah Mansoor displaced persons camp in Pakistan, listening to one resident detail the carnage which had spurred his and his family’s flight there a mere 15 days earlier. Their city, Mingora, had come under massive aerial bombardment. He recalled harried efforts to bury corpses found on the roadside even as he and his neighbors tried to organize their families to flee the area.
Beyond the Yellow Ribbon: Hope for Returning Veterans
BILL SCHEURER: Major Tammy Duckworth hobbled to the podium on her own power – aided by prosthetic devices in both her legs and one arm. An Iraq War veteran who was severely injured in battle and now serves as Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs, she spoke of one of her comrades who arrived first on the scene after the helicopter she was piloting had been shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade.
Honduran President Zelaya Preaches Nonviolence to OAS
Inaugurating the recent OAS Assembly in San Pedro Sula, Honduaran President Manuel Zelaya spoke about nonviolence.
U.S. Troops Hiding in Iraqi Homes
DAVID SWANSON: A few words from U.S. troops in Iraq, all quoted in Chapter 1 of Dahr Jamail’s brilliant new book, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.