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 [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • Pole dancing for the faint-hearted

    Let the Real Housewives try this for a change. Did you like this? Share it:

  • IRS Scandal Headlines: More Than Meets the Eye

    IRS Scandal Headlines: More Than Meets the Eye

    by Stephen Lendman More than targeting political enemies is involved. More on than below. The practice is longstanding. Republican and Democrat administrations use the IRS abusively.  During the Coolidge administration, Republican Senator James Couzens investigated the IRS’ predecessor – the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).  Did you like this? Share it:

  • Putin v. Obama et al

    Putin v. Obama et al

    by Stephen Lendman On May 16, the Wall Street Journal headlined “Russia Raises Stakes in Syria,” saying: Russia “sent a dozen or more warships to patrol waters near its naval base in Syria, a buildup that US and European officials see as a newly aggressive stance meant partly to warn the West and Israel not to intervene [...]

Volkswagen’s Tennessee plant sets new standard for low wages

 ANNOTATED NEWS, THE LABOR FRONT  Comments Off
Sep 232011
 

By Andre Damon, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization

Volkswagen’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, made headlines this year as the first US auto assembly plant to pay its entire production workforce the lowest starting wage for new US autoworkers—$14.50 per hour.  But now the plant is starting all new production employees at $12 per hour, workers said, setting the bar even lower for autoworker wages.

In order to receive a bevy of state, federal, and local subsidies, Volkswagen promised in 2008 to create 2,000 local jobs at the “full” pay rate. But as production approaches full speed, all new production workers are now being hired in through Aerotek, Volkswagen’s labor contractor, at $12 per hour. In addition to the current production workforce, the factory employs over 500 temporary contract production employees, workers said. Continue reading »

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ARCHIVES: Big Media’s ‘Steadfastly Neutral’ ‘Partisan Ideologues’

 ANNOTATED NEWS, INDECENT SLIMEBALLS, MEDIA SCUM, MEDIA TURDS  Comments Off
Sep 232011
 

From FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)
07/17/2009 by Gabriel Voiles

Todd, the imaginary journalist.

Asking his readers to “remember” that, on NBC, Chuck Todd “is billed as a reporter covering the White House, not a pundit expressing opinions,” Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald (7/15/09, ad-viewing required) examines a Toddappearance on the MSNBC show Morning Joe ”discussing reports that [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder is likely to appoint a prosecutor to investigate Bush torture crimes. Needless to say, everyone agreed without question that investigations were a ridiculous distraction from what really matters and would be terribly unfair”:

In response to virtually every media criticism (at least the few they acknowledge), establishment journalists will insist that their role is to be steadfastly neutral. They simply report on the debates, not take sides or express opinions about them. Taking one side or the other is not their role. Only partisan ideologues do that. Continue reading »

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BRIAN WILLSON: Counter Terrorism Under Reagan-Bush I

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, GOVERNMENT CRIMES  Comments Off
Sep 232011
 

August 23, 2011
ARCHIVES: Counter Terrorism Under Reagan-Bush I 

Reagan Launches Explicit Policy Using “Terror“ as Pretext for Repression

By S. Brian Willson*

S.B. Willson

**December 4, 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed 14 page Executive Order 12333, establishing operating procedures for the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies to restore domestic surveillance. ["This continued the trend toward increasing CIA power and White House support. In particular, it authorized the infiltration, manipulation, and disruption of domestic organizations by the FBI and CIA even in the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing," according to Covert Action, Number 22 (Fall 1984)].   

**January 29, 1982, National Security Decision Directive 22 (NSSD-22), authorized the CIA to request the FBI to collect information on U.S. citizens for use by the CIA.

Continue reading »

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How the world changed after 9/11

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS, GOVERNMENT CRIMES  Comments Off
Sep 232011
 

From: The Guardian (UK) News Blog

People attending the conference.

On the day of September 11, Charlie Skelton attends a symposium of critical thinkers in New York.

The heavy syllables of the victims’ names boomed out along the streets around Ground Zero. The public were patted down, then allowed up a cramped side road to peer at a distant video screen of the memorial. They filmed the video screen on their mobile phones, filmed each other filming, and film crews filmed them filming.

It was hardly fertile ground for grief, you’d think. And yet, the weird detachment of the moment was severed by the chanting of the names and the brief tributes of the readers. It was the daughter who said her father’s friends tell her that she reminds them of him that did it for me. That, and the list of victims called Jones. Jones after Jones after Jones. Too many Joneses. I took my sniffles back up the street to Starbucks. Continue reading »

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What if the Tea Party Occupied Wall Street?

 ANNOTATED NEWS, HEADLINERS  Comments Off
Sep 232011
 

Editor’s Note: True to form, the corporate media have shamelessly ignored, swept under their bloodstained rug, the ongoing protests at Wall Street. In that they remind us that they are not there to serve us, but them—their oligarchic masters. 

Action Alert
 Corporate media skip anti-corporate protests

Too true to be news.

In an action called Occupy Wall Street, thousands of activists took to the streets of Lower Manhattan on September 17. The protests are continuing, with demonstrators camped out on the Financial District’s Liberty Street in support of U.S. democratization and against corporate domination of politics (Adbusters, 9/19/11).

But you wouldn’t know much about any of this from the corporate media–outlets that seem much more interested in protests of the Tea Party variety. Continue reading »

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