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150 Years Of Misunderstanding The Civil War

Posted on July 12, 2013 in Articles

Civil War

The Article: 150 Years Of Misunderstanding The Civil War by Tony Horowitz in The Atlantic.

The Text: In early July, on the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, pilgrims will crowd Little Round Top and the High Water Mark of Pickett’s Charge. But venture beyond these famous shrines to battlefield valor and you’ll find quiet sites like Iverson’s Pits, which recall the inglorious reality of Civil War combat.

On July 1st, 1863, Alfred Iverson ordered his brigade of North Carolinians across an open field. The soldiers marched in tight formation until Union riflemen suddenly rose from behind a stone wall and opened fire. Five hundred rebels fell dead or wounded “on a line as straight as a dress parade,” Iverson reported. “They nobly fought and died without a man running to the rear. No greater gallantry and heroism has been displayed during this war.”

Soldiers told a different story: of being “sprayed by the brains” of men shot in front of them, or hugging the ground and waving white kerchiefs. One survivor informed the mother of a comrade that her son was “shot between the Eye and ear” while huddled in a muddy swale. Of others in their ruined unit he wrote: “left arm was cut off, I think he will die… his left thigh hit and it was cut off.” An artilleryman described one row of 79 North Carolinians executed by a single volley, their dead feet perfectly aligned. “Great God! When will this horrid war stop?” he wrote. The living rolled the dead into shallow trenches–hence the name “Iverson’s Pits,” now a grassy expanse more visited by ghost-hunters than battlefield tourists.

We Must Hate Our Children

Posted on July 11, 2013 in Articles

We Must Hate Our Children

The Article: We Must Hate Our Childre by Joan Walsh in Salon.

The Text: Next time you’re watching a college graduation, as you look out over the sea of caps and gowns, make sure you notice the ball and chain most graduates are wearing as they march onstage to receive their diplomas. That’s student loan debt, which at over $1 trillion tops credit card debt in the U.S. today. The average burden is $28,000, but add in their credit cards and they’re graduating with an average of $35,000 in debt. It’s no wonder that people who’ve paid off their student loan debt are 36 percent more likely to own homes than those who haven’t, according to new research by the One Wisconsin Now Institute and Progress Now.

What kind of society sends its young people from higher education into adulthood this way? I’m aware I’m only talking about those lucky enough to go to college, when roughly one-third of high school graduates don’t – but if this is the way we treat our relatively lucky kids, the rest of them don’t have a prayer. For many, the school to prison pipeline functions much more efficiently than the school to college one; California is one of at least 10 states that now spends more on prison than education (all education, not just higher education). According to the Federal Reserve Bank, two-thirds of college graduates leave with some debt, and 37 million Americans are repaying a student loan right now.

Unbelievably, interest rates on federally subsidized loans are doubling today, from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. As Congress bickers over alternatives, even Democrats are backing “market-based” plans that aren’t as bad as GOP ideas, but aren’t good either. I hope they can find a way to lower interest rates, but the real scandal isn’t the rate hike. The real scandal is that we take for granted that young people must go into debt – at whatever interest rate – to pay for college.

If You Want A Child, Try Not To Have It In The US

Posted on July 10, 2013 in Articles

Pregnancy US

The Article: American Way of Birth, Costliest in the World by Elisabeth Rosenthal in The New York Times.

The Text: Seven months pregnant, at a time when most expectant couples are stockpiling diapers and choosing car seats, Renée Martin was struggling with bigger purchases.

At a prenatal class in March, she was told about epidural anesthesia and was given the option of using a birthing tub during labor. To each offer, she had one gnawing question: “How much is that going to cost?”

Though Ms. Martin, 31, and her husband, Mark Willett, are both professionals with health insurance, her current policy does not cover maternity care. So the couple had to approach the nine months that led to the birth of their daughter in May like an extended shopping trip though the American health care bazaar, sorting through an array of maternity services that most often have no clear price and — with no insurer to haggle on their behalf — trying to negotiate discounts from hospitals and doctors.

Waging War On The Unemployed

Posted on July 9, 2013 in Articles

Unemployed War

The Article: War On The Unemployed by Paul Krugman in The New York Times.

The Text: Is life too easy for the unemployed? You may not think so, and I certainly don’t think so. But that, remarkably, is what many and perhaps most Republicans believe. And they’re acting on that belief: there’s a nationwide movement under way to punish the unemployed, based on the proposition that we can cure unemployment by making the jobless even more miserable.

Consider, for example, the case of North Carolina. The state was hit hard by the Great Recession, and its unemployment rate, at 8.8 percent, is among the highest in the nation, higher than in long-suffering California or Michigan. As is the case everywhere, many of the jobless have been out of work for six months or more, thanks to a national environment in which there are three times as many people seeking work as there are job openings.

Nonetheless, the state’s government has just sharply cut aid to the unemployed. In fact, the Republicans controlling that government were so eager to cut off aid that they didn’t just reduce the duration of benefits; they also reduced the average weekly benefit, making the state ineligible for about $700 million in federal aid to the long-term unemployed.

13 Mindblowing Facts About America’s Tax-Dodging Corporations

Posted on July 8, 2013 in Articles

Corporation Facts

The Article: 13 Mindblowing Facts About America’s Tax-Dodging Corporations by Richard Eskow in AlterNet.

The Text: A judicious writer avoids adjectives like “mindblowing,” especially when covering political or economic issues. But no other word seems to describe the stunning reality of corporate taxation in modern America, which cries out for the italics-heavy, exclamation-point-driven format made famous by Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Stylistic overkill? Read these thirteen facts and you may change your mind.

1. We’re told we can’t “afford” full Social Security benefits, even though closing corporate tax-haven loopholes would pay for Obama’s “chained CPI” benefit cut more than ten times over!