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Violence in Afghanistan continues to climb with at least two dozen people killed in various incidents across the country. The deaths were the results of US/NATO airstrikes, a pitched firefight, and a Taliban road-side bomb, that killed civilians, fighters, and US troops. The Defense Department announced that 615 members of the US military had died in Afghanistan since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom. President Obama has pledged to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and Congress is poised to pass a $92 billion supplemental spending bill on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A growing number of anti-war groups including Iraq Veterans Against the War, have lobbied against passing the bill. IVAW passed a resolution earlier this year calling for an end to the occupation of Afghanistan and …

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A three-day sale of Latin-American art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York has drawn attention to a rare self-portrait by famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The sellers hope to rake in a million dollars for the painting by an artist whose other works have sold for tens of millions. Rivera is known internationally as the larger-than-life artist, whose radical leftist politics inspired and infused his art. That, along with his dramatic and tempestuous marriage to the arguably even more well known artist Frida Kahlo, have inspired a global following. Rivera most notably gained notoriety when commissioned by the Rockefeller family in the 1930s to paint a mural in the RCA building in Manhattan. A furor followed when Rivera painted an image of the Soviet leader Lenin as part …

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The Show Trial of Antonio Gramsci

Back in the day on May 28th, 1928, the show trial of the influential Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci commenced. As a journalist, political activist and parliamentarian, Gramsci was arrested in November 1926 after the fascist government of Mussolini issued so-called “Exceptional decrees.” As a person who helped co-found the Italian Communist Party, Gramsci was deemed a threat to public security and was subsequently banished to the island of Ustica. When the fascist government finally set up its pseudo-legal apparatus known as the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State, Gramsci was tried in Rome where the prosecutor stated “we must prevent this brain from functioning for twenty years.” The prison sentence given to him – surprise, surprise – was twenty years, four …

“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” — Pablo Picasso

We’ll hear from a US soldier who has refused to deploy to Afghanistan and his reasons for facing possible court martial. And, we’ll find out how deep and devastating Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed program cuts are going to be. Plus Latin American art expert Gregorio Luke on the life and art of famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.

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President Barack Obama, in an anticipated announcement yesterday, named Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his Supreme Court nominee. If confirmed by the Senate, Sotomayor, in replacing retiring Justice David Souter, would become the first Latino and third woman in history to serve on the High Court. In praising his choice, Obama said at a press conference that “when Sonia Sotomayor ascends those marble steps to assume her seat on the highest court in the land, America will have taken another important step toward realizing the ideal that is etched about its entrance: Equal justice under the law.” Born to Puerto Rican parents, Sotomayor was raised in a housing project in the Bronx in New York before graduating from Princeton. From there, she …

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Proposition 8, the anti-same sex marriage initiative which passed in California last November, has been upheld by the California Supreme Court. In a 185 page ruling issued yesterday morning the Court’s 6-1 decision affirmed the right of voters to amend the state constitution through the ballot. At issue was the question of whether Proposition 8 went so far to change the constitution that it should have been considered a revision rather than an amendment. The opinion stated that LGBT Californians still have access to all the rights afforded to them under marriage, as they did before the passage of Prop 8, but that the word marriage wouldn’t apply. In the months since Prop 8 passed, several states including New Hampshire, Iowa, Maine, and Vermont have legalized same-sex Marriage. There were actions around …

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The Execution of Thomas Muntzer

Back in the day on May 27th, 1525 German religious reformer and theologian Thomas Muntzer was beheaded. Originally attracted to the Protestant Reformation as articulated by Martin Luther, Muntzer, however, came to reject it as insufficiently radical. In contrast to Lutheran principles, Munzter believed that prophetic inspiration came not from scripture alone, and politicized his theology to conclude that the peasantry must rise to overthrow the upper classes. Because of his radical teachings, Muntzer eventually was exiled to Prague, but returned in time to become a leader in the Peasants’ War starting in 1524. In the course of the rebellion he was able to establish a theocracy based on the principle of common ownership of property. Leading thousands of peasants in Frankenhausen, Muntzer and …

“The essence of democracy is its assurance that every human being should so respect himself and should be so respected in his own personality that he should have opportunity equal to that of every other human being to show what he meant to become.” — Anna Garlin Spencer

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Last Thursday a key committee in the House of Representatives approved sweeping legislation intended to address the gathering threat of global warming. Introduced by Democratic Representatives Henry Waxman and Ed Markey, the American Climate and Energy Act of 2009 sets out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Central to obtaining the bill’s emission standard, which is lower than what had been originally suggested, is the market based “cap and trade” approach. Through government “caps” and industry “trades” the legislation claims the system will spur the development of renewable energy sources while lowering emissions. However, many environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have criticized the cap and trade system as inefficient to deal with the problem of global warming and subsequently are not lending their support to …