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
  • The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties

    The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties

    The controversies over the IRS and especially the AP phone records appear to have long-lasting effects By Glenn Greenwald,  guardian.co.uk  Barack Obama Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images Due to the controversies over the IRS and (especially) the DOJ’s attack on AP’s news gathering process, media outlets have suddenly decided that President Obama has a very poor record [...]

  • Argentina’s General Videla and the “war on terror”

    Argentina’s General Videla and the “war on terror”

    By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla died May 17 at the age of 87 as the result of injuries suffered from a fall in a prison shower. He was remembered as the head of a savage military dictatorship that between 1976 and 1983 murdered and “disappeared” some 30,000 Argentine workers, socialist militants, [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • The Tornado and Other Man-Made Disasters

    The Tornado and Other Man-Made Disasters

    Our Economic System is Driving Climate Change by KEN KLIPPENSTEIN The ancient Greeks attributed weather to the god Zeus; today we can safely attribute it to industrial capitalism and its voracious consumption of fossil fuels. The carnage left by a tornado in Oklahoma yesterday is just the latest in our economic system’s daunting body count. [...]

  • Witness tied to Boston bombing suspect killed by FBI

    Witness tied to Boston bombing suspect killed by FBI

    By Barry Grey and Nick Barrickman, wsws.org Twenty-seven-year-old Ibragim Todashev was shot and killed early Wednesday morning while being interrogated by police and intelligence officials in an Orlando, Florida, apartment. Todashev, a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and, like Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen, was reportedly being questioned by a Federal Bureau of [...]

  • Classical Essays: The rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte - Part One

    Classical Essays: The rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte – Part One

    PART ONE OF FOUR Editor’s Note: The core truth about Napoleon is still a matter of debate. Napoleon, opportunist or usurping though he may appear to a modern Marxian obswerver, not to mention Anglo-American mainstream historians tainted with Francophobic hatred and contempt for the French and their revolution, was also seen as a threat by [...]

  • PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary "Citizen Koch" To Appease Koch Brothers

    PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary “Citizen Koch” To Appease Koch Brothers

    By Brendan Fischer, PRWatch | Report “Citizen Koch,” a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in “public” television and raises [...]

  • Why Obama Will Walk Away Unscathed by the Current Political Scandals

    Why Obama Will Walk Away Unscathed by the Current Political Scandals

    by Pascal Robert, Black Agenda Report Don’t worry about Barack Obama. He’s far too useful to the rulers of America to be derailed by scandal, or even a combination of scandals. “Obama’s neoliberal government giveaways to private corporations and mercenary foreign policy already make him too valuable to the guardians of American empire to have [...]

An unusual plea for help

 ALERTS, ANNOTATED NEWS  5 Responses »
May 142011
 

From the editors of The Greanville Post

Dear Friends:

Rowan Wolf

The reason for this most unusual appeal is a sad and compelling one. One of our closest friends and invaluable comrades in this struggle to move human society, and especially America, toward a better future, is literally dying for lack of financial resources to cover her enormous medical expenses. Probably many of you know that The Greanville Post (TGP) and Cyrano’s Journal Today (CJT) are sister sites created by a tightly-knit cooperative of committed citizens journalists and animated with the same spirit. Rowan Wolf—editor-in-chief of Cyrano’s Journal— is a critical member of this community. Continue reading »

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Osama’s Bin Laden Kill Sets Precedent

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS, IMPERIALISM  1 Response »
May 142011
 

US National Security Information Operations:
Osama’s Bin Laden Kill Sets Precedent

by John Stanton | Thank you, Cryptome

Photo shows likely openings through two walls from which attack on the house was made. Along wall at left are lengths of pipe, perhaps for an agricultural irrigation system.

According to the Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, September 2008, “Information is a strategic resource vital to national security. Dominance of the information environment is a reality that extends to the armed forces of the United States at all levels. Military operations, in particular, are dependent upon many simultaneous and integrated activities that, in turn, depend upon information and information systems, which the United States must protect…With the free flow of information present in all theaters, such as TV, phone, and Internet, conflicting messages can quickly emerge to defeat the intended effects. As a result, continuous synchronization and coordination between Information Operations, Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy, and U.S. allies is imperative. It also helps to ensure that information themes employed during operations involving neutral or friendly populations remain consistent.” Continue reading »

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Obama bin Laden Kill Site Shrine

 ANNOTATED NEWS, IMPERIALISM  1 Response »
May 142011
 

13 May 2011

A Pakistani woman poses for a picture with her daughter in front of the final hiding place of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 5, 2011. Pakistan faces the prospect of Osama bin Laden's final hiding place becoming a shrine or macabre tourist spot unless the military destroys a compound attracting hundreds of visitors a day.

The site in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011 by the US military and the CIA is already a celebrated media and tourist attraction and could become a shrine to bin Laden and Al Qaeda as the most world-famous site in Pakistan. This would be a crucial closure to the vast 9/11 memorialization in the US and elsewhere, a prime portion of which remains contested at WTC for grotesque politicization and commercialization. Continue reading »

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CEO pay in US tops pre-crisis levels

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE  Comments Off
May 142011
 

It’s built in its DNA—
Nothing except a very strong hand or complete dismantlement can stop the predatory abuses of the capitalist system.

By Barry Grey |13 May 2011

Besides being a compensation vulture, CBS top honcho Les Moonves is one of those "men-behind-the-curtain" that help pollute the American media.

Two surveys released this week show that CEO compensation at major US corporations for 2010 topped the levels reached in 2007, prior to the financial meltdown and global recession.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday published its review of 350 companies listed in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, concluding that the median value of salaries, bonuses and long-term incentive awards for their CEOs rose 11 percent over 2009 to $9.3 million. Continue reading »

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Italy’s role in the war on Libya

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, The Middle East  Comments Off
May 142011
 

By Marianne Arens | 14 May 2011

The Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian carrier in the Mediterranean theater.

Italy has actively participated in the bombing of Libya since April 28. Day and night, Italian fighter jets take off from Birgi Trapani air force base in Sicily and from the aircraft carrier  Garibaldi, to drop their deadly cargo over the former Italian colony.

A few weeks ago, foreign minister Franco Frattini had said on his ministry’s web site that Italy should not participate actively in the war against Libya: “If an Italian aircraft bombed Libya and accidentally killed any civilians, the intervention would become counter-productive”. The Italian government feared comparisons with Italy’s 1911-1943 colonial rule over Libya, under both “democratic” and fascist Italian governments. Continue reading »

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