Journalism

Everybody’s heard of the My Lai massacre — March 16, 1968, 50 years ago today — but not many know about the man who stopped it: Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot. When he arrived, American soldiers had already killed 504 Vietnamese civilians (that’s the Vietnamese count; the U.S. Army said 347). They were going to kill more, but they didn’t — because of what Thompson did. . . .
. . . continued at  LATimes.com HERE
3/16/2018

Read HERE
Jon Wiener: There’s a familiar Republican argument against the idea of the common good: It’s my responsibility to do what’s best for me and my family. It’s your responsibility to take care of yourself. If you have problems, health problems or job problems or family problems, that’s too bad—but it’s not my problem. The state should not force me to pay for your problems. You should take responsibility for yourself. I think you’ve probably heard this argument.
Robert Reich: I’ve heard it for a very long time. It’s absurd. . .
TheNation.com 3/16/2018

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A conversation with author and organizer Jane McAlevey about Janus v. AFSCME and the way forward for labor: the rank and file must be involved in the life of the union, from contract negotiations to day-to-day contract enforcement.
at TheNation.com, 3/2/2018

Howell Raines is a legendary figure in journalism, an Alabama native who joined The New York Times in 1978 and was executive editor 2001-2003.
JW: A Lot of people everywhere are now saying, ‘Thank you, Alabama!’
HR: “It took us years to throw off the dead hand of George Wallace.  It feels good to me. ”  cont. at The Nation, 1/15/2018,  HERE

A black Brit travels through white America, starting in Maine, the whitest state, and ending in Mississippi, the blackest — talking only to white people, and only about white people.  My Q&A with Gary Younge:
at TheNation.com, HERE 
12/22/17

Howell Raines: “This is the most competitive and theatrical race we’ve had in Alabama since 1970, when George Wallace defeated a New South progressive named Albert Brewer by running the most racist campaign in Alabama history. What is being tested here, put most bluntly, is whether the swing voters in Alabama would rather send a suspected pedophile to the Senate than vote for a Democrat.”
Continued at TheNation.com HERE

Despite their truth-telling about Trump’s offenses and violations, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, and John McCain still vote with him 90 percent of the time: Rick Perlstein, author of the classic Nixonland, says in this interview that that’s the trouble with anti-Trump Republicans.
Dec.1, 2017
Q&A at TheNation.com, HERE

Howell Raines: I covered my first George Wallace segregation rally in 1965, and I’ve been trying to figure out Alabama’s politics ever since. This has to be the most bizarre episode in my experience. . . .
continued at TheNation.com, HERE

Q&A with Tony Schwartz, the author behind The Art of the Deal–he says Trump has always been “100 percent self-absorbed, incapable of interest in other human beings, and completely self-referential. Even 30 years ago, he had an incredibly short attention span. Lying was almost second nature to him; he did it as easily as most of us drink a glass of water.”  But now, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller closes in, he is “moving to a darker place.”
–continued at TheNation.com, HERE

A new book by 27 psychiatrists, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” expresses concern and alarm about Trump’s mental and emotional state.  They say they have an ethical “duty to warn” the public because of the danger Trump poses.  Amy Wilentz comments.
Read HERE