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
  • Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby versus Prince Harry and his polo-playing American friends

    Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby versus Prince Harry and his polo-playing American friends

    By David Walsh, wsws.org “Prince Harry rounded off his hugely successful week-long tour of the U.S. today very much in his comfort zone – playing polo. … He was greeted by club founder Peter Brandt [sic] and his model wife, Stephanie Seymour. Brandt, 65, – whose wife is 44 – is an American industrialist and [...]

  • Connecticut May Let Students Opt Out of Dissection

    Connecticut May Let Students Opt Out of Dissection

    by Alicia Graef Connecticut students who have a conscientious objection to dissection may soon have the right to opt out if lawmakers pass An Act Concerning Dissection Choice. Students have come forward to express their discomfort and objections to learning about the study of life by wasting the lives of innocent animals. Some are met with [...]

  • Russia Catches CIA Spy Red-Handed

    Russia Catches CIA Spy Red-Handed

    by Stephen Lendman America never permitted the bipolar rivalry to die down, and now given its taste for world domination it is wantonly creating new flashpoints for lethal confrontation. The upshot may be another arms race and a world that much closer to WW3. CIA agents operate most everywhere. They don’t promote friendly relations. They’re [...]

  • America Honors Its Worst

    America Honors Its Worst

    by Stephen Lendman Presidential Medals of Freedom are awarded annually. They mock what they claim to represent. Many go to deplorable recipients.  Previous dishonorees include GHW Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair, Shimon Peres, Margaret Thatcher, Alvaro Uribe, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and Alan Greenspan among others. Did you like [...]

  • Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies

    Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies

    by Stephen Lendman Capitalism has succeeded in capturing governments around the world. Forget everything you learned about markets, economics and finance. Perhaps Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and other noted figures were wrong.  Central banks run today’s world. Major ones matter most. Money printing madness controls everything. Love doesn’t make the world go round. [...]

  • Can America Come to Terms with Boston Bombing Suspect's Stated Motives?

    Can America Come to Terms with Boston Bombing Suspect’s Stated Motives?

    Consortium News [1] / By Ray McGovern [2] Quick, somebody tell CIA Director John Brennan about the handwriting on the inside wall of the boat in which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was hiding before Boston-area police riddled it and him with bullets. Tell Brennan that Tsarnaev’s note is in plain English and that it needs neither translation nor interpretation in solving the [...]

  • A new film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    A new film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    By David Walsh, wsws.org Directed by Baz Luhrmann, co-written by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald “It’s not all rubbish,” cried Amory passionately. “This is the first time in my life I’ve argued Socialism. It’s the only panacea I know. I’m restless. My whole generation is restless. I’m sick [...]

  • Obama’s New Appointments Prove that He Will Continue to Lick Wall Street’s Boots In His Second Term

    Obama’s New Appointments Prove that He Will Continue to Lick Wall Street’s Boots In His Second Term

    by WashingtonsBlog Puts Fox In Charge of the Henhouse … Again The party line is that Obama’s new pick for SEC boss – Mary Jo White – will be tough on Wall Street. For example, the Wall Street Journal writes: Obama Taps Ex-Prosecutor Mary Jo White, Portending Increased Policing of Wall Street In reality, this is putting the [...]

Imperial Eye on Pakistan

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CENTRAL ASIA, IMPERIALISM  2 Responses »
May 292011
 
Pakistan in Pieces, Part 1

By Andrew Gavin Marshall

Global Research, May 28, 2011

Introduction

As the purported assassination of Osama bin Laden has placed the focus on Pakistan, it is vital to assess the changing role of Pakistan in broad geostrategic terms, and in particular, of the changing American strategy toward Pakistan. The recently reported assassination was a propaganda ploy aimed at targeting Pakistan. To understand this, it is necessary to examine how America has, in recent years, altered its strategy in Pakistan in the direction of destabilization. In short, Pakistan is an American target. The reason: Pakistan’s growing military and strategic ties to China, America’s primary global strategic rival. In the ‘Great Game’ for global hegemony, any country that impedes America’s world primacy – even one as historically significant to America as Pakistan – may be sacrificed upon the altar of war. Continue reading »

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Dispatches From the End of Empire

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, HUMBUG CENTRAL, INDECENT SLIMEBALLS  1 Response »
May 292011
 

BY DAVID MICHAEL GREEN

Even when the Republicans lose, they win through the Democrats.

Well folks, there’s good news, and there’s bad news in America today.

THE GOOD NEWS  is that people seem to be waking up just a bit to what’s being done to them.

THE BAD NEWS  is that it really is just a bit that they’re waking up.

The good news is that the Republican Party is showing some serious signs of preparing for self-immolation.

The bad news is that that leaves us with Barack Obama and the other Republican Party as an ‘alternative’.

Such is the state of America at the end of empire. Continue reading »

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Encircling Russia with US Bases

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, CITIZEN TOOLS, IMPERIALISM  1 Response »
May 292011
 
By Stephen Lendman 

The Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, and his Polish counterpart Jaroslaw Kaczynski (r) inspect the guard of honour in Warsaw. Both politicians agreed to allow the US to install clearly provocative advanced missiles aimed at Russia in their territories. Would we accept a similar situation in Canada or Mexico? Photograph: Peter Andrews/Reuters

In 1991, after the Soviet Union dissolved, everything changed but stayed the same. As a result, today’s stakes are far greater, presenting much larger threats to world peace.

In America, neocons are still dominant. Obama is more belligerent than Bush, waging four wars and various proxy ones. The Israeli Lobby, Christian Right, and other extremist elements drive them. Conflict is preferred over diplomacy. Continue reading »

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Desperately needed: A new political party

 American Parties, ANNOTATED NEWS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, Liberaloids & Radical Centrists  3 Responses »
May 292011
 
The two-party system: Another citizen calls it quits.
By James Clay Fuller

The need to move past existing parties is now acute.

Count me among the growing number of people who believe support of the Democratic Party, as such, is not merely a waste of time but, worse, a deeply negative activity.  Support for the Democratic Party leads to continued degradation of the United States and great harm to all citizens who are not wealthy.

The same has to be said about support for the Republican Party, but that does not mean rational people must therefore throw in with the Democrats. In plain language, they’re about equally bad for America and its people.  We desperately need a new party, and there is a logical place to begin forming one: With the long list of genuine liberal organizations that were given birth by the Internet. More of that shortly.

 

 

 

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Attacking the Memory of Workers’ Struggle

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS  Comments Off
May 292011
 

Another Breitbart Hit Job

Andrew Breitbart. A frequent guest of Bill Maher's and other supposedly progressive venues, he's rarely exposed for what he truly is.

By BRIAN TIERNEY

If you thought the bipartisan crusade against workers to roll back union rights would be enough to soften the saber rattling of corporate class warfare, think again.

Not content with the legislative assault on workers’ rights in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and beyond, the corporate ideologues on the far right of the budget-cutting and union-busting onslaught are also going after the very history of labor struggle. Continue reading »

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In Praise of Gil Scott Heron

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ARTS & FILM  Comments Off
May 292011
 

SPECIAL— BY MARK VALLEN 

Scott-Heron. Severe drug-addiction may have shortened his life considerably.

Gil Scott Heron died on May 27, 2011 at the age of 62. Some obituaries have referred to him as “The Founding Father of Rap”, but as the BBC put it in their coverage of Heron’s passing, “He was quick to reject some of the more grandiose epithets such as the ‘Godfather of rap.’” I think it proper to refer to Heron as a griot. In the traditions of West Africa, a griot is an itinerant musician and storyteller who keeps alive a people’s history through song and poetry. That was certainly Heron’s role in life, and his works had an enormous influence on my generation. Continue reading »

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