ANDRE DAMON—The Watergate scandal, the Church Commission of the 1970s and the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, not to mention the intelligence agencies’ role in fabricating the “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction ahead of the invasion of Iraq, their criminal mass domestic surveillance and their role in drone murder, made clear that these are criminal organizations, willing to use any means to expand their own power at the expense of democracy.
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BILL VAN AUKEN—The entire rescue effort has been characterized by an outpouring of human solidarity and concern for the fate of the young people trapped beneath the earth, together with international collaboration and the deployment of immense resources to achieve the aim of bringing them out alive.
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CARLOS DELGADO—The creatively bankrupt Hollywood studio machinery, which seems increasingly incapable of doing anything but churning out sequels, remakes, “reboots,” and “reimaginings” of commercially successful franchises, has of late made appeals to identity politics by creating “gender-swapped” versions of popular films, where women inhabit roles that had previously been played by men. Far from being an attempt to showcase the talents of the performers involved, much less appeal to the broad mass of women whose experiences are excluded from the cultural landscape, such efforts are cynical and nakedly mercenary attempts to squeeze blood from the stones of once-lucrative franchises.
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MIKE HEAD—Last Sunday, Australia’s Channel 7 network broadcast an interview with Jennifer Robinson, an Australian-born, London-based lawyer who represents WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange. She issued a clear demand for the Australian government to carry out its responsibility to secure his freedom, as an Australian citizen.
The interview and 10-minute segment on the nationally-televised “Sunrise” morning program was a significant break in the general silence within the Australian corporate media on the more than seven-year detention of Assange. -
MARTHA ROSENBERG—Two lies lurk under the PR stunt. First, most of Pharma’s profits come from non life-saving drugs that treat acid reflux, ADHD, poor eating habits and a host of trumped up psychiatric illnesses. Secondly, research accounts for only one-fifth of Pharma’s drug costs. Most drug costs Pharma seeks to recoup are for marketing––the ask-your-doctor ads you see on TV––and, of course, lobbying.
