Something to think about—(put cursor over scroller to stop it)

We're engaged in a protracted mass communications battle, a contest of propagandas, Their object is to prop up the system's legitimacy; ours precisely the opposite. The core of a system's illegitimacy is nothing more nor less than its easily demonstrable Orwellian nature. If it claims to be a democracy it must be a plutocracy; if it proclaims to defend the safety of its population, it actively endangers it; if it struts around loudly shouting its allegiance to freedom and the rule of law, it is in actuality a cynical hidden dictatorship; If it brags about its "free press", then you know for sure that it is an abject, servile tool of the power elites. Of course the most infamous contradiction is that when this hypocritical scum kneel before the altar of peace they are actively engaged in making war. On and on. Always the opposite of what it claims. In America, especially, anyone awake can see that readily. But unfortunately the majority are still asleep.—Sean Lenihan •••The cowardice and duplicity of Congress, above all, the Democrats, and the subservience of the media, exhibited in their response to the exposure of the NSA spying programs, encourage the military and intelligence agencies to go even further in their drive toward dictatorship. Mark Udall, the Democratic senator presented as the most “outspoken” critic of the spying programs, began his interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program by pledging his support to the “war on terror” and denouncing leaks of classified information.—Barry Grey••••From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation. Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.—Steve Best••••For 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.

You, Terrorist
By William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed (Photo: 350.org / Flickr) The Keystone XL pipeline is not a disaster waiting to happen. It is a whole pile of disasters waiting to happen. Expected to run from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta through more than half a dozen American states and down to the Gulf shore of Texas, [...]
Capitalism in Crisis: Our Opportunity for a New System
Wednesday, 19 June 2013 13:30By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Truthout | News Analysis (Photo: adam greenfield / Flickr) It’s time to end the era of Big Finance capitalism and an economy based on the extraction of resources, especially for energy. This statement is not an ideological proposal, but a practical one. We simply cannot continue on the present [...]
Keystone XL Activists Labeled Possible Eco-Terrorists
Green Scare Continues by STEVE HORN Documents recently obtained by Bold Nebraska [1] show that TransCanada – owner of the hotly-contested Keystone XL (KXL) [2] tar sands pipeline – has colluded with an FBI/DHS Fusion Center in Nebraska [3], labeling non-violent activists as possible candidates for “terrorism” charges and other serious criminal charges. Did you like this? Share it:
Spying, Control and Murder Under the Imperial Presidency
Surveillance and the Corporate State by ROB URIE With all of the fear mongering the subject has received in recent decades, Americans have in fact had remarkably little to fear directly from ‘terrorism.’ While actual attacks have been spectacular—they were designed to garner attention, they are both rare and far less dangerous than opportunistic politicians [...]
The Judicial Lynching of Bradley Manning
By Chris Hedges FORT MEADE, Md.—The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered. The documents that [...]
Edward Snowden: Profile in Courage
Whistleblowing in the Name of the Constitution by CHRISTOPHER H. PYLE Edward Snowden may go down inhistory as one of this nation’s most important whistleblowers. He is certainly one of the bravest. The 29-year-old former technical assistant to the CIA and employee of a defense intelligence contractor has admitted to disclosing top secret documents about [...]
BOOK REVIEWS: The Pope Is Not Gay!
From the archives: Articles you should have read the first time around but missed. The Pope Is Not Gay! by Angelo Quattrocchi, Translated by Romy Clark Giuliani Reviewed by George De Stefano | Released: October 4, 2010 Publisher: Verso (192 pages) On May 13, 2010, during the annual Mass at Fatima’s sanctuary in Portugal, Pope [...]
Philip French: Behind the Candelabra
A brilliant performance by Michael Douglas illuminates an affectionate and funny portrait of the flamboyant entertainer By Philip French / The Observer (UK), Saturday 8 June 2013 Michael Douglas as Liberace in Behind the Candelabra: ‘sheer brilliance’. Photograph: HBO/Everett Collection http://youtu.be/4gxpYz4YBSI Liberace was a fabulously rich, self-created midwesterner, the child of humble immigrant parents known for his extravagant lifestyle and vulgar [...]

The Anti-Empire Report : Reflections on Libya and other martyred lands

ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, The Middle East Comments Off

Nov 192011

By William Blum

www.killinghope.org

It doesn’t matter to them if it’s untrue. It’s a higher truth.

“We came, we saw, he died.”
— US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,
giggling, as she spoke of the depraved murder of Moammar Gaddafi

Imagine Osama bin Laden or some other Islamic leader speaking of 9-11: “We came, we saw, 3,000 died … ha- ha.”

Clinton and her partners-in-crime in NATO can also have a good laugh at how they deceived the world. The destruction of Libya, the reduction of a modern welfare state to piles of rubble, to ghost towns, the murder of thousands … this tragedy was the culmination of a series of falsehoods spread by the Libyan rebels, the Western powers, and Qatar (through its television station, al-Jazeera) — from the declared imminence of a “bloodbath” in rebel-held Benghazi if the West didn’t intervene to stories of government helicopter-gunships and airplanes spraying gunfire onto large numbers of civilians to tales of Viagra-induced mass rapes by Gaddafi’s army. (This last fable was proclaimed at the United Nations by the American Ambassador, as if young soldiers needed Viagra to get it up!)^{1 Continue reading »}

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BOOKS: RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War (Excerpt 2)

ANNOTATED NEWS, BOOK NOTES, VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY Comments Off

Nov 192011

Generations of Resistance to War

From the Book

RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War

By William T. Hathaway

A Granny for Peace told of finding young allies in the struggle against military recruiting. Due to the PATRIOT Act, she wishes to remain nameless.

Erich Maria Remarque’s book All Quiet on the Western Front (later a classic film, in 1930) was one of the most eloquent antiwar documents of the first World War, whose carnage marked several generations. (Image: Lew Ayres, as the German protagonist, Paul Bauer.)

____________________________________________

It’s never easy being a parent or a child. The generations always have friction between them, a conflict between the elders’ need to give guidance and youths’ need to find their own way. I grew up in the 1950s, when the USA was very conservative and bound by traditions. My parents’ generation had grown up in the Depression amid poverty and then struggled through World War Two with its threat of death and destruction. By the time they were ready to start families, they were fixated on stability and security. They measured their progress by their possessions: buying their first car, first television, first house. Their morality centered on controlling sexuality and protecting private property. Their religion was a death cult of stern patriarchs, obedient virgins, innocent babies, and threats of eternal torture. Their deepest philosophy was, “There is no free lunch.” The peak of their scientific achievement was the hydrogen bomb. Fear was their strongest emotion. Continue reading »

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Targeting Iran and Syria

ANNOTATED NEWS, IMPERIALISM Comments Off

Nov 192011

By Stephen Lendman

Assad may soon be the new Gaddafi. The script applied to Libya and other countries is now being applied to Syria, by the same criminal gang.
____________
SEE ALSO OUR ADDENDUM: Russian warships enter Syrian waters to prevent a NATO attack.

America, key NATO partners, and Israel target both countries.

Israel wants regional rivals removed. Washington and key NATO partners want independent regimes ousted, replaced with subservient ones. At issue is establishing regional dominance. New targets can then be confronted politically, economically, and/or belligerently.

Fabricated IAEA Iranian documents escalated tensions. Rhetorical saber rattling followed. Stiffer sanctions are threatened and perhaps war. Continue reading »

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Thrown out of Their Camps, Can the Occupiers Return Stronger?

ACTIVISTS & HEROES, CLASS STRUGGLE Comments Off

Nov 192011

By Alexander Cockburn

From Manhattan, to Nashville, to St. Louis, to Portland, Ore., to Oakland, Calif., the police this week moved in to clear out the Occupy Wall Street protesters from the various downtown plazas or squares where they’d established their peaceable camps. Mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan, had earlier acknowledged a conference call between 18 mayors across the U.S. discussing strategy, and the mode elected was clear enough. Get them out, by any means necessary. Continue reading »

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Obama heightens danger of war in Asia

ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, CHINA, US Foreign Policy Comments Off

Nov 192011

Peter Symonds, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization

The significance of President Barack Obama’s “shift” toward the Asia Pacific region has become evident in the course of the past week. On every front—diplomatic, economic and military—the Obama administration is aggressively confronting China, greatly heightening tensions within the region and every country of the region. Continue reading »

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Obama seeks to build anti-China coalition at Bali summit

ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, Political Vermin, US Foreign Policy Comments Off

Nov 192011

By Alex Lantier, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization

_______________________________

The three-day Asian summit that began Thursday on the Indonesian island of Bali was dominated by the visit of US President Barack Obama, and his attempts to assemble Asian countries into an anti-China coalition. Obama met with Indian and Filipino leaders, pressed for greater US influence in the South China Sea, and announced closer US ties with Myanmar, a long-time Chinese ally in the region.

This was the last leg of a ten-day Asia-Pacific tour by Obama, with stops in Hawaii and Australia. In Hawaii, Obama promoted plans for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a US-centered free-trade zone, now expanded to include Canada, Mexico and possibly Japan. China was not invited to join. In Australia, he announced plans for greater US use of Australian military bases and the development of Darwin—a northern Australian city near key shipping routes between the Indian and Pacific oceans—as a major US staging base. Continue reading »

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Interview with creator of Occupy Wall Street “bat-signal” projections during Brooklyn Bridge #N17 march

ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS Comments Off

Nov 192011

By Xeni Jardin at 11:15 pm Thursday, Nov 17

REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi

Earlier this evening, tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters marched throughout New York City, many making their way on to the Brooklyn Bridge, carrying LED candles and chanting. As Occupiers took the bridge in a seemingly endless sea of people, words in light appeared projected on the iconic Verizon Building nearby:

“99% / MIC CHECK! / LOOK AROUND / YOU ARE A PART / OF A GLOBAL UPRISING / WE ARE A CRY / FROM THE HEART / OF THE WORLD / WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE / ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE / HAPPY BIRTHDAY / #OCCUPY MOVEMENT / OCCUPY WALL STREET / list of cities, states and countries / OCCUPY EARTH / WE ARE WINNING / IT IS THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING / DO NOT BE AFRAID / LOVE.” Continue reading »

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Many topics to choose from

There’s violence and there’s violence

Revolutionary Violence vs Institutionalized Violence

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves..." —Mark Twain, writing about the French Revolution.

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It doesn’t matter to them if it’s untrue. It’s a higher truth.

Generations of Resistance to War

By Stephen Lendman Assad may soon be the new Gaddafi. The script applied to Libya and other countries is now being applied to Syria, by the same criminal gang. ____________SEE ALSO OUR ADDENDUM: Russian warships enter Syrian waters to prevent a NATO attack.

By Alexander Cockburn

Peter Symonds, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization

By Alex Lantier, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization

_______________________________

By Xeni Jardin at 11:15 pm Thursday, Nov 17

By Stephen Lendman

Assad may soon be the new Gaddafi. The script applied to Libya and other countries is now being applied to Syria, by the same criminal gang.
____________
SEE ALSO OUR ADDENDUM: Russian warships enter Syrian waters to prevent a NATO attack.