The Greanville Post —Vol. VII- 2013

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

Apple’s tax dodge: The case for public ownership
Guest Editorials— By Andre Damon, wsws.org The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report Monday showing that electronics giant Apple Inc. uses offshore tax shelters to avoid taxes on the majority of its income and cheated the US government out of $9 billion in 2012 alone. That same day, a tornado leveled the town [...]
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 [...]
Argentinean Nightmare
Patricio Pron’s “My Father’s Ghost is Climbing in the Rain” by CHARLES R. LARSON, Counterpunch Patricio Pron’s publishers refer to My Father’s Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain as an autobiographical novel. More likely, the book is an autobiography with a few details altered to protect the innocent, although the innocent became victims long ago. The book [...]
Stockholm Smolders
Xenophobia Rising in Sweden by S.C. HAHN—Stockholm. •••• Stockholm has been the scene of riots this week, to much of the world’s surprise, with the unrest flaring up in immigrant-dominated neighborhoods on the city’s periphery. The Stockholm media reports cars burning in at least fifteen suburbs, stone-throwing against police, firefighters and ambulance personnel, injured police [...]
Benghazi: Imperialist Outpost
Politicized-Militarized Diplomacy by NORMAN POLLACK I am not naïve. Embassies have been centers of intrigue, propaganda disseminators, bases for political intervention in a nation’s internal affairs, intermediaries for the promotion of markets and investments, etc., practices not confined to those representing the US, and hardly confined to recent times. That said, Benghazi (technically, a consulate), signifies, as [...]
OpEds—Capitalism: “Horror Without End”
by John Peterson, Socialist Appeal The stream of distressing news seems to flow endlessly: School shootings from Colorado to Connecticut. Factory collapses and explosions from Bangladesh to Texas. Terrorist attacks from Pakistan to Boston. Crumbling infrastructure from Mexico City to Minneapolis. Kidnappings and torture from Ciudad Juarez to Cleveland. War and civil war from Syria [...]
How Medea Benjamin got to heckle Obama
Speeches given in front of ‘vetted” sycophantic audiences, behind closed doors. A glorified photo-op perfectly apt for a manipulated democracy. Did you like this? Share it:
Obama’s Orwellian rhetoric
Obama’s Orwellian rhetoric, Congo war crimes, Jailed for silence, DOJ assault on Fox Source: RT.com On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin and political commentator Sam Sacks go over the Orwellian rhetoric in Obama’s latest foreign policy speech. Abby highlights a recent UN investigation bringing to light crimes against humanity committed by a [...]

The Hypocrisy of Democracy and How Our Failures Create Environmental Devastation for Our Children

Dec 262011

By Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Black Agenda Report

This is the only environment that we have, but the Obama administration is proving itself to be bad steward. “As part of Obama’s ongoing betrayal of campaign promises, he recently struck down new measures that would have seen the U.S. partially reduce emissions.” Occupy EPA attempts to put “protection” back into the agency’s mandate. “While state, local and even the federal government seem committed to destroying the Occupy Movement they are simultaneously oblivious to the crimes committed everyday on Wall Street in the name of the free enterprise system.” Continue reading »

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The Myth of American Exceptionalism

ANNOTATED NEWS, HISTORY Comments Off

Dec 262011

The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans. Too bad it’s not true. Far from being a unique state whose behavior is radically different from that of other great powers, the United States has behaved like all the rest, pursuing its own self-interest first and foremost, seeking to improve its relative position over time, and devoting relatively little blood or treasure to purely idealistic pursuits. Yet, just like past great powers, it has convinced itself that it is different, and better, than everyone else.

BY STEPHEN M. WALT

Over the last two centuries, prominent Americans have described the United States as an “empire of liberty,” a “shining city on a hill,” the “last best hope of Earth,” the “leader of the free world,” and the “indispensable nation.” These enduring tropes explain why all presidential candidates feel compelled to offer ritualistic paeans to America’s greatness and why President Barack Obama landed in hot water — most recently, from Mitt Romney — for saying that while he believed in “American exceptionalism,” it was no different from “British exceptionalism,” “Greek exceptionalism,” or any other country’s brand of patriotic chest-thumping. Continue reading »

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Obama Year Three: Continuing His Rogue Agenda

ANNOTATED NEWS, LIBERAL BETRAYALS, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, SCUMWATCH Comments Off

Dec 262011

By Stephen Lendman

In 2011, Obama continued the destructive pattern he followed in years one and two. Throughout his tenure, he’s done what supporters thought impossible.

Across the board on domestic and foreign issues, he governed to the right of George Bush. He’s waged multiple imperial wars, plans others, looted the nation’s wealth, wrecked the economy, consigned growing millions to impoverishment without jobs, and institutionalized tyranny to target dissenters challenging political corruption, corporate crooks, or abuse of power lawlessness.

He also promotes regime change in Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Lebanon, and other independent states. In addition, he targets Russia’s military strength and China’s growing economic might. At the same time, he supports ruthless, corrupt tyrants.

Moreover, he authorized indefinitely detaining anyone called a national security threat without charge (including US citizens). He continues Bush’s rendition and torture policies, authorized killing US citizens abroad, (like Anwar Al-Awaki for opposing America’s belligerency), and deployed Special Forces death squads covertly to 120 or more countries. Continue reading »

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Russian v. US Elections

ANNOTATED NEWS, IMPERIALISM, PROPAGANDA, STEALTHY OPS Comments Off

Dec 262011

By Stephen Lendman

The image on the left, run on the Christian Science Monitor (a leading US newspaper), has been typical of American press reports on the Russian elections and Putin’s standing among the people. The image is headlined, “Huge protest demanding fair Russian elections hits Moscow.” It adds: “Russian protesters angry at what they say are rigged elections and the authoritarian ways of Vladimir Putin, flooded Moscow today demanding change.” (Dec. 24th)
__________________________________________

Russia’s December 4 elections filled 450 State Duma seats, Russia’s Federal Assembly lower house.

Claims of electoral fraud followed. All elections have irregularities. At issue is whether results are comprised. Election monitor Golos accusations were spurious. America’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funds it. It supports regime change in non-US client states. It backs opposition groups, conducts propaganda campaigns, and does openly what CIA operatives do covertly to destabilize sitting governments. Its mission is subverting, not promoting democracy. It operates with State Department funding and direction. It serves US imperial interests destructively against targeted countries. Continue reading »

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Must We Adore Vaclav Havel?

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Dec 262011

Written by Michael Parenti | Studies in Capitalist Propaganda

Editors’ note: Vaclav Havel has died and the mainstream press is filled with adulatory obituaries. This is an evaluation of Havel by Michael Parenti written in 1997. It might give readers a more substantive picture.

No figure among the capitalist restorationists in the East has won more adulation from U.S. officials, media pundits, and academics than Vaclav Havel, a playwright who became the first president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia and later president of the Czech Republic.

The many left-leaning people who also admire Havel seem to have overlooked some things about him: his reactionary religious obscurantism, his undemocratic suppression of leftist opponents, and his profound dedication to economic inequality and unrestrained free-market capitalism. Continue reading »

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THE VELVET REVOLUTION

ANNOTATED NEWS, CLASS STRUGGLE, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE, IMPERIALISM Comments Off

Dec 262011

Editor’s Note: As is customary for the capitalist press, the encomiums have become a torrent in the wake of Vaclav Havel’s death last Sunday 18th. The facts have been upended, the back story—the truth about US-engineered capitalist restorations and the conditions of life for most people under the new dog-eat-dog regimes—entirely eliminated. Below, a hagiographic excerpt all too typical from Bloomberg Businessweek:

Havel, who died in his sleep Dec. 18 at the age of 75 after a long illness, was a symbol for opposing totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet bloc and helped lead the nation to democracy [capitalist rule] following the Velvet Revolution that overthrew communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989. He was president for almost 13 years and counted figures including Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa as friends. 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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