As President-elect Barack Obama focuses on the meltdown of the U.S. economy, another fire is burning: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You may not have heard much lately about the disaster in the Gaza Strip. That silence is intentional: The Israeli government has barred international journalists from entering the occupied territory.
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Evo Morales knows about “change you can believe in.” He also knows what happens when a powerful elite is forced to make changes it doesn’t want.
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Alice Walker is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. But Monday, I called her to talk about a true story. The Obamas had just visited the White House. The first African-American elected president of the United States had visited his soon-to-be residence, a house built by slaves.
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Democracy Now! producer Anjali Kamat writes, “To all those for whom America has represented generations of racial injustice, the election of America’s first Black president marks the beginning of a new era…But unless the inspired millions who brought him to power continue to believe their demands matter and insist on holding him accountable each step of the way, it will be Obama’s corporate and hawkish friends who determine the domestic and foreign policies of the coming administration and our collective future.”
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You could almost hear the world’s collective sigh of relief. This year’s U.S. presidential election was a global event in every sense. Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, represents to so many a living bridge—between continents and cultures.
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The legendary radio broadcaster, writer and oral historian Studs Terkel has died at the age of 96 in Chicago. Over the years Terkel has been a regular guest on Democracy Now!
In 2005, Studs Terkel appeared on Democracy Now! shortly after undergoing open heart surgery. He told Amy Goodman, “My curiosity is what saw me through. What would the world be like, or will there be a world? And so, that’s my epitaph. I have it all set. Curiosity did not kill this cat. And it’s curiosity, I think, that has saved me thus far.”
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Election Day approaches, and with it a test of our election system’s integrity. Who will be allowed to vote; who will be barred? Who will get paper ballots; who will use electronic voting machines? Will polls be open long enough to accommodate what is expected to be a historic turnout?
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In Burma, the military junta is continuing its violent crackdown on anti-government protesters. Soldiers raided monasteries and fired at demonstrators. At least nine people were killed on Thursday, including a Japanese photojournalist. There are fears the death toll could be several times more. We speak with Burmese activist, Htun Aung Gway, president of the Civil Society for Burma. [includes rush transcript]
“In today’s world there are more health care professionals involved in the design and structuring of torture than there are involved in providing care for survivors,” said Douglas Johnson, executive director of the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis. We also speak with professor Steven Miles, author of “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror.” [includes rush transcript]
A Minnesota immigrant rights group has sued Immigration and Customs Enforcement over its raid last year on a meatpacking plant owned by Swift and Company in Worthington, Minnesota. The lawsuit claims that federal agents “insulted, abused, and humiliated the plaintiffs on account of their race.” We speak with the executive director of Centro Legal, the group that filed the lawsuit. [includes rush transcript]