WikiLeaks, vanden Heuvel, Phish, Keynes and Joe Bageant (with video)

"US private Bradley Manning charged with leaking Iraq killings video" (GuardianUK):

A US army intelligence analyst was today charged with leaking a highly classified video of American forces killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad and secret diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. MORE...

Katrina vanden Heuvel (WaPo op-ed):

But, as I've argued before, if progressives are to alter the hostile political environment that arms the lobbies and forces President Obama -- and, even more, fearful centrist Democrats in Congress -- to shrink from bolder reforms, they must build and mobilize a broad reform movement that transcends left-right divisions.

Now, we have a compelling blueprint of just how to do that. A new book -- "The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will Into Political Power" -- shows that that kind of organizing is no pipe dream. Written by Michael Pertschuk, former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission and co-founder of the Advocacy Institute, the book focuses on the strategies and leadership of organizer Vincent DeMarco, who has waged successful advocacy campaigns in Maryland and Congress for 20 years. MORE...

"Killing in the name of" (Phish 7/4/2010, video-03:59).

"Keynes & Co. have lost the stimulus argument" (Brad Delong-The Week):

With the nation mired in unemployment, liberal economists have been pulling the fire alarm with increasing urgency. But the fire department isn't coming.
(SNIP)
The situation is grim. So why isn't everybody running around with their hair on fire?
I have my theories:
• widening wealth inequality and an upgrading of the class position of reporters and pundits, who are no longer ink-stained wretches immersed in mainstream America;
• the collapse of union power, which ensures that nobody who sees real workers on a daily basis sits at the table when the deals are made;
• increasing job security for the powerful in Washington, aided by the growth of the lobbying apparatus that envelops the mixed-economy government;
• the collapse of professional integrity among the Washington press corps, which no longer dares to call balls and strikes as it sees them, preferring to say only that the Democrats say it was a strike and the Republicans say it was a ball, and that opinions on the shape of the earth differ.MORE...

"Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball" (Joe Bageant):

As an Anglo European white guy from a very long line of white guys, I want to thank all the brown, black, yellow and red people for a marvelous three-century joy ride. During the past 300 years of the industrial age, as Europeans, and later as Americans, we have managed to consume infinitely more than we ever produced, thanks to colonialism, crooked deals with despotic potentates and good old gunboats and grapeshot. MORE...