Things to consider—

Since early 2011, Obama's been waging proxy war on Syria. Imported death squads masquerade as freedom fighters. The scheme's familiar. It repeats. It reflects US imperialism's dark side. In the 1980s, CIA-recruited mujahideen fighters battled Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers." He characterized Contra killers the same way. —Stephen LendmanFor over a century now US ambassadors have acted as fifth columns in the nations they are embedded in, their role chiefly to foster corporate and plutocratic power and coordinate machinations against any truly pro-democratic government.•••••"The dead end identity politics of SF Pride, which sells out a peace hero like Bradley Manning to curry favor with the American ruling class, is what I had in mind. The empire loves your tameness, irrelevance and cowardice, SF Pride. You don’t bother the American ruling class — a five foot two, 105 pound soldier does because he has a conscience and because he didn’t make comfort the guiding principle of his life...." —Randy Shields

Empire on the Rocks: Washington’s Autocrats, Aristocrats and Thugs Are Falling

 ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CLASS STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Apr 252011
 

One of the most carefully kept secrets in modern history—to the American people— is the evil nature of their country’s foreign policy.

By Alfred W. McCoy and Brett Reilly, Tomdispatch.com

Posted on April 25, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150719/empire_on_the_rocks%3A_washington%27s_autocrats%2C_aristocrats_and_thugs_are_falling

Ngo Dinh Diem, America's hand picked puppet in South Vietnam, on an official visit to the seat of the empire. When his usefulness was gone so was he. Second from left, J. Foster Dulles, the noxious banker and fanatical anticommunist who shaped the early part of the cold war.

In one of history’s lucky accidents, the juxtaposition of two extraordinary events has stripped the architecture of American global power bare for all to see. Last November, WikiLeaks splashed snippets from U.S. embassy cables, loaded with scurrilous comments about national leaders from Argentina to Zimbabwe, on the front pages of newspapers worldwide. Then just a few weeks later, the Middle East erupted in pro-democracy protests against the region’s autocratic leaders, many of whom were close U.S. allies whose foibles had been so conveniently detailed in those same diplomatic cables. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 2:23 pm

Democrats and Republicans escalate campaign against health care programs

 CLASS STRUGGLE, HEALTH & MEDICINE  Comments Off
Apr 252011
 

By Joseph Kishore | 25 April 2011

The GOP front brigade. Criminals and prostitutes all, but the Democrats are hardly better. It's a systemic problem.

Democrats and Republicans are escalating their attack on government programs that benefit the working class, centering their focus on Medicare and Medicaid, the principal health care programs for the poor, disabled and elderly.

The Republican Party proposal, presented by Congressman Paul Ryan and approved by the House of Representatives earlier this month, would effectively demolish the two programs. For his part, Obama has just returned from a tour of the West Coast in which he trumpeted his own plan to cut $2 trillion, primarily from the health care programs, over the next decade. The proposal, still vaguely elaborated, would expand measures already passed as part of the administration’s cost-cutting health care overhaul last year. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 1:56 pm

WHILE THE BIG ENVIRO GROUPS SLEEP: Capitalism Trumps Climate

 CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, ECOANIMAL, HEADLINERS, SAVING THE PLANET  1 Response »
Apr 252011
 

The big enviro groups’ bankruptcy as effective activists was seen in full technicolor during the BP Gulf of Mexico tragedy.  These groups totally failed to alert the public about such issues (which continue as before), have remained largely mute in the face of Obama’s de facto capitulation to business interests, and have practically woven their practices into the fabric of the corporate world, often retaining CEOs who in  pay and policy are indistinguishable from their regular commercial counterparts. —Eds.

"Drill, Baby, Drill!" Indeed. The scumbag choir of politicians and pundits endorsing this criminal policy has permitted deep water offsdhore drilling in the Gulf and elsewhere in exactly the same reckless conditions as before, with a greedy, sociopathic oil industry supposedly policing itself.

By Lorna Salzman

How many of you actually think that there are sincere and meaningful efforts being made to mitigate climate change? If your answer is yes, then what proof do you offer? What groups, individuals, policies or legislation do you think are making a difference or will in the near future? Why do you think so? Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 12:35 pm
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