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While the nearly $800 billion stimulus package signed by President Obama has come under intense fire from some conservatives, there has been hardly any comment on the Pentagon’s 2010 budget of $700 billion. Unemployment rates are sky high, record numbers of people are claiming jobless benefits, healthcare costs are bankrupting Americans, and millions are fore-closed out of their homes. Still, the Defense Department’s budget is in line with past fiscal year budgets under President Bush. While World War II spending is credited with lifting the US out of the Great Depression, arms expert Frida Berrigan says “military spending is no longer a stimulus driver.” In her new article in the Nation Magazine, Berrigan claims that unlike the economic revival of the 1940s, this time “we began with boom …

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As unemployment rates in the United States continue to rise as part of the current recession, food insecurity is increasing along with it. In December 2008 Feeding America conducted a survey of food banks across the nation that showed a 30 percent increase in demand for assistance. The latest figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture state that 36.2 million Americans are at risk of hunger, more than a third of which of are children. Even before the onset of the recession, the state of California faced growing food insecurities. Between 2005 and 2007, more than ten percent of Californian residents faced hunger or were already hungry. In terms of federal assistance, last year the state placed dead last in terms of participating in food stamp programs. During …

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As Los Angeles is mired in an ever increasing budget deficit, community organizations are calling on Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council to focus resources on social services. The LA Coalition against State Violence is calling on officials to reduce city money allocated for the Los Angeles Police Department and invest instead in public transportation, prevention efforts, and affordable housing among other things. Even though the budget shortfall for the city may top one billion dollars in two years, the LAPD, nevertheless, is planning to move its headquarters to a half-a-billion dollar newly constructed facility this November. Prior to LA’s recent elections, Mayor Villaraigosa and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton announced plans to increase the police force to 10,000 officers. The Coalition, in mapping out …

Friday April 24th:

KPFK and the Pacifica Radio Archives present Amy Goodman and David Goodman, authors of “Standing Up to the Madness” on Friday April 24th at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $15 at the door (no advance sales). No one will be turned away for lack of funds. The event is at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 3300 Wilshire Blvd. (@Berendo). Park at the UTLA building across the street.

There will also be a reception hosted by the Pacifica Radio Archives from 5:30 – 7 pm at Geneva Hall, Immanuel Presbyterian Church. Tickets are $75.00 per person / $100 per couple. Call 1-800-735-0230 x 264 for reservations. (Attendees will receive a special gift from the Pacifica Radio Archives).

To celebrate KPFK’s 50th year of broadcasting, Amy will join KPFK General Manager, Sean Heitkemper and Pacifica Radio Archives Director, Brian DeShazor in a conversation about KPFK’s legacy.

Tuesday April 28th:

Join KPFK and celebrate …

Our weekly edition is a nationally syndicated one-hour digest of the best of our daily coverage.

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This week on Uprising:

* Violence in Iraq Re-surges: Implications for a Continued US Occupation
* Empire Notes on the Torture Memos
* Bush Memos Reveal Ugly Extent of American Torture
* Black Agenda Report on Racial Profiling
* A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-face with Modern-day Slavery

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Violence in Iraq Re-surges

In what was the bloodiest day in Iraq so far this year, two suicide bombings killed more than seventy people on Thursday. The first attack took place in the national capital of Baghdad when a …

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In what was the bloodiest day in Iraq so far this year, two suicide bombings killed more than seventy people yesterday. The first attack took place in the national capital of Baghdad when a suicide bomber detonated explosives near Iraqi national police officers who were handing out aid. At least 25 were killed, six of which were members of the police force. The second and deadliest attack occurred nearly an hour later west of Baqubah, the provincial capital of Diyala, at a local restaurant crowded with Iranian pilgrims. The blast killed 47 people and injured at least 69 more. Two more bombings followed in the cities of Tikrit and Mosul as Iraqi authorities claimed the violence was spurred by their arrest of purported Sunni insurgent leader and al-Qaeda member …

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A new essay in the latest issue of Adbusters Magazine by Douglas Haddow paints a scathing critique of pornography: not as a moral diatribe but from the perspective of a modern man deeply concerned with the negative effects of pornography on men as a result of isolating over-consumption, and lacking any significant analog to feminism. The essay called “Pornocalypse Now” opens with a well-known quote by George Orwell, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” Haddow imagines what if Orwell, instead of having written a novel called 1984, had been born in 1984 and a young man today? According to Haddow, “Orwell would probably not be a down-and-out journalist, but more likely a disengaged copywriter – …

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A week-long Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change concludes today in Anchorage, Alaska. The gathering of hundreds of indigenous delegates from around the world will bring the summit to a close with a declaration and an action plan to be submitted to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen this December. To that end, representatives also called for the greater inclusion of indigenous peoples and their voices in the drafting of the next international treaty that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol. The summit, that began on Monday, convened just 500 miles east of the Alaskan village of Newtok, which has already seen the effects of global warming melt permafrost and force the relocation of hundreds of residents. The further disruption of natural systems tied to indigenous ways …

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Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is about racial profiling.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

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The Armenian Genocide

Back in the day on April 24th, 1915, the Ottoman Turkish government strategically arrested more 200 Armenian intellectual leaders in Constantinople. This mass detention of influential journalists, political leaders, and artists among others was followed by another wave of arrests of hundreds more. Noted as the “tripwire” event that set off the tragic genocide of the Armenian people that would follow, many of those detained were later executed. Under the authorities of The Young Turks, the Ottoman government carried out a coordinated campaign of annihilation against Armenians that by 1923 had claimed the lives of over 1.5 million people. To this day, the modern Turkish government continues to deny that genocide took place. And after ninety-four years, the United States government has yet to …