Dear In These Times reader,
Don't miss new stories at InTheseTimes.com from the last two weeks, including: A sober look at the “moral twilight zone" of the Gaza Strip during Israel's three-week war early this year, and U.S. complicity in atrocities there. Columnist Susan Douglas weighs in on the Henry Louis Gates Jr. brouhaha. And a dispatch from the Brave New Voices Poetry Slam, where activism and spoken word collide, with videos.
And for headlines at Working In These Times, our new blog dedicated to workers' rights and labor issues, go here. To subscribe to the new site's RSS feed, click here.NEWS and FEATURES
Litterers or Life-Savers?: Government prosecutes activists who leave water for immigrants.
Aiding and Abetting War Crimes: The Israeli military tested new weapons in Gaza with U.S. support.
Who’s Got the Power?: Progressives find themselves outmaneuvered on healthcare reform, David Moberg reports.
Fast Food, Slow Justice: Workers protest Yum! Brands firings.
Slam of the Free, Poem of the Brave: Activism through spoken word, at the Brave New Voices Poetry Slam.
Power of the People: In the long run, Iranian civil society will trump both official dogma and international influence.
COMMENTARY
Dems, You Have the Power!: "For more than 30 years, Democrats have failed to defend the state in the face of conservative attacks," James Thindwa writes.
News Media ‘Acting Stupidly’: Susan Douglas on the Henry Louis Gates Jr. media brouhaha: "This is irresponsible celebrity journalism posing as something more high-minded because it was allegedly about race relations."
Don’t You Forget About Him: David Sirota remembers John Hughes: "He accomplished the seemingly impossible by insisting that the rest of us mere mortals are not as weird or worthless as we've been implicitly led to believe."
Mr. President, Help Save the News: InTheseTimes.com columnist Megan Tady on what a White House commission on public media could accomplish.
The Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd: David Sirota on "lobbyist-organized mobs" that have disrupted congressional town hall meetings about healthcare.
Jeremy Gantz, Web editor