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
  • Apple’s tax dodge: The case for public ownership

    Apple’s tax dodge: The case for public ownership

    Guest Editorials— By Andre Damon, wsws.org The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report Monday showing that electronics giant Apple Inc. uses offshore tax shelters to avoid taxes on the majority of its income and cheated the US government out of $9 billion in 2012 alone. That same day, a tornado leveled the town [...]

  • Rise Up or Die

    Rise Up or Die

     By Chris Hedges Joe Sacco and I spent two years reporting from the poorest pockets of the United States for our book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.”We went into our nation’s impoverished “sacrifice zones”—the first areas forced to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace—to show what happens when unfettered corporate capitalism and ceaseless economic expansion [...]

  • Argentinean Nightmare

    Argentinean Nightmare

    Patricio Pron’s “My Father’s Ghost is Climbing in the Rain” by CHARLES R. LARSON, Counterpunch Patricio Pron’s publishers refer to My Father’s Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain as an autobiographical novel.  More likely, the book is an autobiography with a few details altered to protect the innocent, although the innocent became victims long ago.  The book [...]

  • Stockholm Smolders

    Stockholm Smolders

    Xenophobia Rising in Sweden by S.C. HAHN—Stockholm. •••• Stockholm has been the scene of riots this week, to much of the world’s surprise, with the unrest flaring up in immigrant-dominated neighborhoods on the city’s periphery. The Stockholm media reports cars burning in at least fifteen suburbs, stone-throwing against police, firefighters and ambulance personnel, injured police [...]

  • Benghazi: Imperialist Outpost

    Benghazi: Imperialist Outpost

    Politicized-Militarized Diplomacy by NORMAN POLLACK I am not naïve.  Embassies have been centers of intrigue, propaganda disseminators, bases for political intervention in a nation’s internal affairs, intermediaries for the promotion of markets and investments, etc., practices not confined to those representing the US, and hardly confined to recent times.  That said, Benghazi (technically, a consulate), signifies, as [...]

  • OpEds—Capitalism: "Horror Without End"

    OpEds—Capitalism: “Horror Without End”

    by John Peterson, Socialist Appeal The stream of distressing news seems to flow endlessly: School shootings from Colorado to Connecticut. Factory collapses and explosions from Bangladesh to Texas. Terrorist attacks from Pakistan to Boston. Crumbling infrastructure from Mexico City to Minneapolis. Kidnappings and torture from Ciudad Juarez to Cleveland. War and civil war from Syria [...]

  • How Medea Benjamin got to heckle Obama

    How Medea Benjamin got to heckle Obama

    Speeches given in front of ‘vetted” sycophantic audiences, behind closed doors. A glorified photo-op perfectly apt for a manipulated democracy.  Did you like this? Share it:

  • Obama’s Orwellian rhetoric

    Obama’s Orwellian rhetoric, Congo war crimes, Jailed for silence, DOJ assault on Fox Source: RT.com On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin and political commentator Sam Sacks go over the Orwellian rhetoric in Obama’s latest foreign policy speech. Abby highlights a recent UN investigation bringing to light crimes against humanity committed by a [...]

BALKAN ENIGMA

 CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, IMPERIALISM  Comments Off
May 012011
 

AND NATO’S CHAINS OF PROGRESS

By Gaither Stewart

Little known fact: WWI cost Serbia more than one million dead. Relative to its small population, that was a horrific proportion. The image shows Serbian army retreat across Albania. Serbians won decisive victories against the Germans and Austro-Hungarians in the Southeastern front.

(ROME-BELGRADE) NATO seems to find Serbia’s autonomy outrageous, its semi-neutrality unacceptable, its modernity anomalous and above all its path to progress dangerous. For North Atlantic Treaty planners and schemers, Serbia—maverick, outsider, rebel—is an infectious disease to be eradicated. Serbia must be chained, normalized and integrated with the rest of Europe as are most southeastern European lands. Serbia’s neutral existence is an affront, an obstacle to a final solution of the thorny Balkan conundrum. Continue reading »

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Participatory Journalism

 CITIZEN TOOLS, CLASS STRUGGLE, IMPERIALISM  Comments Off
May 012011
 

By Ron Ridenour | 04/29/2011

(This article is Part II of journalist Ridenour’s political autobiography, Solidarity and Resistance: 50 Years With Che. Click here for Part I)

Wilfred Graham Burchett

Wilfred Burchett was a key source of information for many of us who wanted to understand what the United States was doing against Southeast Asians. Burchett was an intrepid reporter for decades. He was the first correspondent to enter Hiroshima after the nuclear bombing and brought the world the military-censored news of its horrors.

Burchett’s journalist code influenced my journalism:

“It is not a bad thing to become a journalist because you have something to say and are burning to say it. There is no substitute for looking into things on the spot, especially if you are going to write on burning international issues of the day. Make every possible effort to get the facts across to at least some section of the public. Do not be tied to a news organization in which you would be required to write against your own conscience and knowledge.” Continue reading »

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Solidarity and Struggle: 50 Years with Che

 CLASS STRUGGLE, IMPERIALISM  1 Response »
May 012011
 

Chronicles of Participatory Journalism—

Ron Ridenour

Sun, 04/17/2011 By Ron Ridenour

(This article is the first of seven pieces dedicated to the Cuban revolution and its defeat of the US imperialist invasion 50 years ago, April 17-19, 1961, and embraces my half-century struggle.)

I. Sharing Che’s Activism

Che’s penetrating eyes stare at me seriously as I write about him. It is strange that I have never written about him before, other than to quote him. Perhaps it is because Che has been too large a figure for me to tackle? I don’t know. This writing, though, is a commemoration of Che and of my 50 years in our common struggle. Continue reading »

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A Victory for Mumia

 CLASS STRUGGLE, Law & Judiciary  Comments Off
May 012011
 

April 27, 2011

3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Slaps Supreme Court

By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr.

Mumia

The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.  Continue reading »

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The West and Libya: Selective Vigilantism

 ANTIWAR, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, IMPERIALISM, The Middle East  Comments Off
May 012011
 

By TARIQ ALI

Libya's ragtag "rebel" army. Neither its actual popularity, nor crimes, nor strength have been investigated by the Western media, eager to rubber-stamp the imperial design.

The US-Nato intervention in Libya, with United Nations security council cover, is part of an orchestrated response to show support for the movement against one dictator in particular and by so doing to bring the Arab rebellions to an end by asserting western control, confiscating their impetus and spontaneity and trying to restore the status quo ante. Continue reading »

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NATO Almost Delivered On The Fatwa

 ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, HEADLINERS  Comments Off
May 012011
 
 

[Black Star News Editorial] / GUEST EDITORIALS SERIES 

SHAMEFULLY: NATO Almost Delivered On The Fatwa

France's sybaritic president Sarcozy and his model wife Carla Bruni. Good at ordering death at one remove. Not in vain he's been called France's own George Bush.

As this newspaper concluded in an editorial last week, it’s a disgraceful shame for President Barack Obama to be involved in the assassination of any foreign leader however detestable the United States may find such a leader to be.

It places the U.S. in the same category as Syria which murdered Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

We made this pronouncement shortly after President Obama authorized the use of armed American predator drones in Libya by NATO. The president had also co-authored a barbaric editorial with warmongering Nicholas Sarkozy and David Cameron, of France and Britain, respectively. Continue reading »
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