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 [...]

The only account you need to read about the Weiner affair

 American Parties, ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, Corporate Media, Policies & Politicians  2 Responses »
Jun 192011
 

Rep. Anthony Weiner resigns under pressure from media and Democrats

By David Walsh
18 June 2011

Weiner admitting his "sin".

The short, sordid campaign to force Rep. Anthony Weiner from office ended predictably Thursday, as the New York City Democrat announced his resignation at a press conference in Brooklyn. A special election will be held to replace him.

In late May right-wing operatives uncovered sexually suggestive text messages and photographs that Weiner, a seven-term congressman, had sent to various women, and published them. After first denying they were his, Weiner admitted June 6 to sending them, but refused to quit Congress. He commented, “I lied because I was embarrassed … But did I violate the Constitution because I lied about a Twitter post? I don’t think so.” Continue reading »

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Duplicitous Congressional Posturing on Libya

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, LIBERAL BETRAYALS, MEDIA SCUM, SCUMWATCH  Comments Off
Jun 192011
 

By Stephen Lendman

In the highly and devious sanitized words of the NYTimes: "A Libyan rebel closed the eyelids of a government soldier who was killed in fighting this week southwest of Tripoli. American forces are aiding a NATO-led mission." Yeah, "a NATO-led mission". The New York Times certainly knows better than that.

In Washington, hypocrisy and duplicity substitute for resolute action to obey international and constitutional law. In fact, they’re mere artifacts long ago discarded to advance America’s imperium.  All Washington’s wars are illegal. International law permits them only in self-defense. Constitutional law only lets Congress, not the president, declare or wage them overtly, covertly or any other way for any reason unless America was attacked.   Continue reading »

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Paul Fuhrmann’s “War Profiteer”

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ARTS & FILM, CLASS STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Jun 192011
 

Kriegsgewinnler ("War Profiteer"). Paul Fuhrmann. Oil on canvas. 1932.

BY MARK VALLEN

Paul Fuhrmann’s painting titled War Profiteer depicts a straightforward scene of an artist at work in his studio with a patron approvingly overseeing the beginnings of a freshly painted canvas. Upon closer inspection the picture reveals a narrative on the subject of culpability and corruption; the canvas is in actuality a fully relevant morality tale for today’s art world. Fuhrmann is little known outside of Germany, though he was an important figure in the avant-garde of that country during the pre-Nazi Weimar years (1919-1932). Though Kriegsgewinnler (”War Profiteer”) was painted in 1932 under extreme circumstances, it is still worth analyzing for the insights it continues to provide. Continue reading »

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Kinetic Military Action Against Libya’s Archeological Sites?

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ARTS & FILM, The Middle East  Comments Off
Jun 192011
 

Roman Ruins at Leptis Magna, Libya. The site is considered to be the most well-preserved ancient Roman city in the Mediterranean. Photograph: Doug McKinlay/Getty Images

By MARK VALLEN

Reports circulated on June 15, 2011 that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would not rule out bombing ancient Roman ruins in Libya if it knew Muammar Gaddafi’s soldiers were hiding military equipment in them. For those who appreciate the importance of Libya’s Roman archeological sites, the most well preserved in all the Mediterranean, this is worrying news. The gravity of the situation is perhaps best summed up by an online TIME Magazine photo essay originally titled, “See Libya’s Roman Ruins Before Nato Bombs Them“, but apparently quickly changed by the magazine’s editors to the less provocative, “Libya’s Roman Ruins.” Continue reading »

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Chris Hedges’s Endgame Strategy

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM  Comments Off
Jun 192011
 

APOCALYPTIC BOREDOM

Why the revolution must start in America.

Audio version read by George Atherton – Right-click to download

The unrest in the Middle East, the convulsions in Ivory Coast, the hunger sweeping across failed states such as Somalia, the freak weather patterns and the systematic unraveling of the American empire do not signal a lurch toward freedom and democracy but the catastrophic breakdown of globalization. The world as we know it is coming to an end. And what will follow will not be pleasant or easy.

The bankrupt corporate power elite, who continue to serve the dead ideas of unfettered corporate capitalism, globalization, profligate consumption and an economy dependent on fossil fuels, as well as endless war, have proven incapable of radically shifting course or responding to our altered reality. They react to the great unraveling by pretending it is not happening. They are desperately trying to maintain a doomed system of corporate capitalism. And the worse it gets the more they embrace, and seek to make us embrace, magical thinking. Dozens of members of Congress in the United States have announced that climate change does not exist and evolution is a hoax. They chant the mantra that the marketplace should determine human behavior, even as the unfettered and unregulated marketplace threw the global economy into a seizure and evaporated some $40 trillion in worldwide wealth. The corporate media retreats as swiftly from reality into endless mini-dramas revolving around celebrities or long discussions about the inane comments of a Donald Trump or a Sarah Palin. The real world – the one imploding in our faces – is ignored. Continue reading »

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