Clipmarks | masbury's clips

History to remember: The Orangeburg Massacre

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:09:15 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Murder by the S. Carolina State Patrol of Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton and Henry Smith, martyrs in the battle for desegregation. The incident received little coverage, compared to Kent State. The only person jailed was one of the black demonstrators; all the troopers were acquitted.

Clip Source: www.truthdig.com

Feb. 8, 1968

Students at South Carolina State University were protesting for access to the town’s only bowling alley

Cleveland Sellers

“It was a cold night ... this was the fourth day of activities around the effort to desegregate the bowling alley. ... The students had built a bonfire to keep themselves warm and build morale. They were trying to work out some strategy. What should they do next?

“The darkness turned to light as the police opened fire, nine highway patrolmen and one local police officer firing rifles and shotguns and pistols. It was a shock to many of the students that there was no bullhorns, no whistles, no anything that indicated that this kind of extremely lethal action would be taken

“It was a barrage of shots ... maybe six or seven seconds.

Students was hollering, yelling and running. ... I got up to run, and I took one step, and that’s all I could remember.

I got hit in the back ... this was when I got paralyzed. Students was trampling over me, because they was afraid.”

Tags: orangeburg, race, history, murder

Cindy McCain worth $100M from beer business

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:45:14 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Manages corporate empire from campaign trail

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

Mrs. McCain

heads one of the nation's largest beer distributorships, an Anheuser-Busch Cos. franchise inherited from her father. She has sported "MS BUD" on her license plate, and from the campaign trail she uses her BlackBerry and cellphone to oversee this region's rollout of Bud Lite Lime and to expand her corporate empire.

Since James Hensley's death eight years ago, the distributorship has nearly doubled, holding a significant portion of the Phoenix-area market share. It has 700 employees and annual revenue of about $300 million. Mrs. McCain has approved the buyout of another distributorship, helping bring sales last year to 23 million cases of beer.

Mrs. McCain (who can tell a beer's freshness by tasting it, according to her daughter Meghan) declines to say what percentage of the company she owns or its value. Industry experts estimate her stake at about $100 million.

Tags: mccain, politics

RAND Corp: 620,000 vets may have PTSD or brain injury

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:25:48 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: About half receive care, and half of those only minimally. I wonder if kids who enlist are warned of the likelihood of this happening to them - should be like cancer warnings on cigarettes.

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - About 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but about half receive no care, an independent study said on Thursday.

The study by the RAND Corp. also estimated that another 320,000 troops have sustained a possible traumatic brain injury during deployment. But researchers could not say how many of those cases were serious or required treatment.

RAND study

said that only half of troops suffering debilities receive care. And in half of those cases, the care is only minimally adequate.

"There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Terri Tanielian, a RAND researcher

"Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation."

Tags: military, veterans, iraq, war, healthcare, politics

How McCain misunderstands Vietnam

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:06:33 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Juan Cole and Phil Schecter analyze Vietnam re: Iraq - outstanding, and many more good points at the source

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

“He entered public life

as a complete isolationist.”

he did a complete 180 when he started hanging out with the neo-conservative crowd

another of McCain’s fears about a U.S. defeat in Iraq — a weakening of U.S. military forces

But Shecter complains that

it is the Iraq war itself that has weakened U.S. military forces rather than the spectre of defeat.

“By any real measure, the military is so unprepared right now because of the war that John McCain and George Bush and their allies thrust upon us,”

“McCain and the Republicans misunderstood the North Vietnamese communists as being an international communist threat. But they were just Vietnamese nationalists,” said Cole. “Now these same people are misunderstanding the Sunni insurgency as an international al Qaeda threat. But they’re just Sunni Arab Iraqi nationalists.”

McCain

played a major role in normalising relations with Vietnam

that was sort of

admitting that what we did in Vietnam

didn’t help our national security; it injured us

Tags: vietnam, mccain, politics, foreign policy

Charleston Gazette endorses

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:38:12 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: "appeals to the innate decency in ... people;" "right about Iraq when many of us were wrong ... the single greatest national security question- and mistake- of our time."

Clip Source: ochairball.blogspot.com

Obama appeals to the innate decency in all groups of people, beyond party lines, without personal grandiosity. He fosters a desire to restore America's finest values of honor and fairness.

In endorsing Obama, Sen. Jay Rockefeller pointed out that the young Illinois lawyer had to work hard - "there was nothing sheltered about his life" - but he rose to national stature. Rockefeller said Obama was far-sighted enough to oppose President Bush's unwise plan to invade Iraq while most others, including rival Hillary Clinton, supported the invasion.

"The indisputable fact is, Barack Obama was right about Iraq when many of us were wrong," the West Virginia senator said. "It was a tough call and the single greatest national security question - and mistake - of our time. ... What matters most in the Oval Office is sound judgment and decisive action. It's about getting it right on crucial national security questions the first time, and every time."

from west virginia's charleston gazette:

Tags: politics, obama

Three more superdelegates for Obama

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:33:22 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: from N Carolina and Indiana

Clip Source: thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

Barack Obama rolled out three more superdelegate endorsements Wednesday, all of them coming from North Carolina and Indiana, which hold their Democratic primaries May 6.

North Carolina Representatives Mel Watt of Charlotte and David Price of Chapel Hill announced their support for Mr. Obama on a conference call with reporters.

“Only one candidate has marshaled this spirit of change into a movement that is completely inclusive, uniquely democratic and uniquely American,” said Mr. Watt, according to The Charlotte Observer. “That candidate is Barack Obama.”

In Indiana, Mr. Obama can count on the support of Representative Andre Carson of Indianapolis. The 33-year-old won a special election last month to fill the House seat after Representative Julia Carson — his grandmother — died.

Mr. Carson said in a news release that Mr. Obama “is part of a new generation of leadership that will bring needed change for our country.”

Tags: politics