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This week on Uprising:

* Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story
* Empire Notes on Swat, Pakistan
* Activists Urge the Passage of the Youth PROMISE Act
* Black Agenda Report called “Obama Shows His True Katrina Colors”
* Free Press Offers Strategies to Save the Newspaper Industry

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Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story

The US’s top general in Afghanistan was replaced this week in the wake of a deadly bomb attack that killed over 100 civilians. General McKiernan, who had lobbied the government for more troops, was swiftly replaced by General Stanley McChrystal, who some say signals an even more aggressive approach to the war in Afghanistan. The killing of 147 civilians in the Western province of Farah, is the single deadliest attack by the US since the 2001 fall of the Taliban. Dissident MP Malalai Joya released a statement yesterday denouncing the attacks and calling for an end to the occupation. Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives just voted to pass supplemental war funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the defection of 51 Democrats who have doubts about the Afghanistan war. President Obama had to rely on the significant allegiance of Republicans to pass the $97 billion measure. Massachusetts Democrat McGovern on Thursday introduced H.R. 2404 a bill requesting that President Obama provide an exit strategy in Afghanistan by the year’s end. The US/NATO occupation has many historical parallels: most notably the decade-long Soviet occupation which the US fought through proxy fundamentalist soldiers. The details of Afghanistan’s history and its relevance to the US war are at best misunderstood among the American mainstream. But now they have been captured in great detail and insight by two people intimately familiar with the Afghan political landscape: Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould.

GUESTS: Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, co-authors of “Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story,” experts on Afghanistan’s history and politics for over twenty years.

Empire Notes on Swat, Pakistan

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is about the situation in Swat, Pakistan.

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade.

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Activists Urge the Passage of the Youth PROMISE Act

Activists are urging the passage of a new bill in Congress that would redefine the prevention of youth crime and violence in the nation. The Youth PROMISE Act, introduced by Virginia Representative Bobby Scott would, among other things, implement recommendations from decades of research through the formation of local councils, increased resources for youth programs, and the hiring and training of Youth Oriented Policing. The Youth PROMISE Act competes with another youth crime bill introduced by California representative Adam Schiff that is far more punitive and focused on incarceration rather than prevention of youth crime. The US imprisons more people than any country in the world, and spends $65 billion a year in maintaining that system. Supporters of the Youth PROMISE Act point out that the bill would invest less than $3 billion annually for potentially lowering the incarceration rates dramatically. Youth groups and advocates around the country have stated their support for the PROMISE act. Human Rights Watch, the LA City Council, and NBA star Baron Davis are also in favor of it. A local group, the Youth Justice Coalition is calling on the public to urge their representatives to support the bill and pass it through both Houses of Congress.

GUEST: Kim McGill, organizer with the Youth Justice Coalition. For more information, call 323-235-4243 and email freelanow@yahoo.com.

Black Agenda Report called “Obama Shows His True Katrina Colors”

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is called “Obama Shows His True Katrina Colors.”

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Free Press Offers Strategies to Save the Newspaper Industry

The New York Times debuted a new online feature last week called “Times Wire,” in hopes that it will boost internet readership and ad revenue. Fashioned along the lines of a frequently updated blog, the effort underscores two chief concerns for the newspaper industry: the rise of internet news consumption and the decline of traditional ad revenue sources. With the onset of the current economic recession, major newspapers have filed for bankruptcy protection while earlier this year, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer became the first large scale print medium to shift its operations exclusively online. That, coupled with vast layoffs in newsrooms across the nation prompted a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate to hold a hearing earlier in May on the future of journalism and newspapers. Senator Ben Cardin from Maryland has put forth a solution based on turning ad-based newspapers into non-profit organizations. Jim Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, testified before lawmakers urging them to consider tax relief, antitrust exemptions, and a way for newspapers to generate revenue from online aggregating sites as preferred options. The media reform organization Free Press has also put forth ideas to save the news including creating new ownership structures, tax incentives for diverse ownership and allocating funds for journalistic training.

GUEST: Craig Aaron, Communications Director of Free Press.

Download the report by Free Press, Saving the News: Toward a National Journalism Strategy at: www.freepress.net/files/saving_the_news.pdf.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for The Day

“News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.” –- Lord Northcliffe