The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties
The controversies over the IRS and especially the AP phone records appear to have long-lasting effects By Glenn Greenwald, guardian.co.uk Barack Obama Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images Due to the controversies over the IRS and (especially) the DOJ’s attack on AP’s news gathering process, media outlets have suddenly decided that President Obama has a very poor record [...]
Argentina’s General Videla and the “war on terror”
By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla died May 17 at the age of 87 as the result of injuries suffered from a fall in a prison shower. He was remembered as the head of a savage military dictatorship that between 1976 and 1983 murdered and “disappeared” some 30,000 Argentine workers, socialist militants, [...]
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 [...]
PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary “Citizen Koch” To Appease Koch Brothers
By Brendan Fischer, PRWatch | Report “Citizen Koch,” a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in “public” television and raises [...]
Why Obama Will Walk Away Unscathed by the Current Political Scandals
by Pascal Robert, Black Agenda Report Don’t worry about Barack Obama. He’s far too useful to the rulers of America to be derailed by scandal, or even a combination of scandals. “Obama’s neoliberal government giveaways to private corporations and mercenary foreign policy already make him too valuable to the guardians of American empire to have [...]
Obama’s War on Free Expression
by Stephen Lendman It’s the most fundamental right. Without it all others are endangered. Obama’s waging war to destroy it. He’s done so throughout his tenure. He targeted AP. He did so unjustifiably. A previous article discussed it. Did you like this? Share it:
The Jesuit Pope – Who is Francis and who he pretends to be
Written by Esquerda Marxista editorial board Wednesday, 15 May 2013 The election of Pope Francis marks a turn in the prolonged crisis of the Catholic Church. It is important for revolutionaries to understand the reasons for the ongoing struggle within the Church. Far from moving to the left, Francis is trying to entrench the Church in [...]
Apple CEO defends multi-billion-dollar tax dodge
By Andre Damon, wsws.org Apple CEO Tim Cook used his appearance Tuesday at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations—called to investigate Apple’s evasion of billions of dollars in taxes—to call for a sharp reduction in the corporate tax rate. The senators on the committee, Democratic and Republican alike, agreed with Cook [...]
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Occupy Wall Street movement has, to date, “been effective in warding off cooptation by Democratic Party fronts such as Rebuild The Dream and MoveOn.org.” But OWS’s recent alliance with Black clergy-based (and Russell Simmons-backed) Occupy The Dream raises serious questions in this election year. “It appears that Occupy Wall Street’s new Black affiliate is also in ‘lock-step’ with the corporate Democrat in the White House.” Continue reading »
By Melanie Lamport
Or How WordPress Doesn’t Make Money
Matt, with his toothy grin, and the guys at Google who want to “make money without doing evil” are just a bunch of geeks who got morally and ethically born again by Richard Stallman, pastor at the Open Source Software Community Church. Matt and Google, get over it. The Christians thought they were making the world a better place when they launched the Crusades and the Inquisition.
-Editor’s Note: We found this article fascinating for what it focuses on, and not too much in technogeek, but we are uncomfortable with the ambiguity of the author’s position: is Ms. Lamport being cynical? Is she laughing at the cybergeeks’ effort at de facto communitarianism? Is she making a backdoor plea for the after-all-we-have-said-about-corporations they ain’t so evil? Frankly I can’t tell for sure. Maybe our readers can sort it out—and let us know.—PG
“WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” Matt Mullenweg Click here to watch a video about the inventor with the cherubic face of the WordPress blogging software. WordCamp is the name given to a series of community sponsored blogging events centered on discussions relating to the WordPress blogging platform.Matt Mullenweg travelled to India for the WordCamp event in 2009. Someone surprised Matt with the “money” question. “How Does WordPress Make Money if you give it away free? Continue reading »
BARACK OBAMA STILL HAS MULTITUDES OF SUPPORTERS among people who refuse to accept reality. More will no doubt will be persuaded to vote for him in November in the name of that old fraud, “the lesser of two evils”. The video below provides an eye-opening sampler of their excuses.
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By John Chan.wsws.org
Militant strikes have continued to spread in China, leading to violent clashes with police on several occasions over the past week.
According to the Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily, last weekend 4,000 workers at the Sanyo Electric plant in Shenzhen protested over the lack of compensation and job security after a merger with Panasonic Corp this month. The plant is a Sino-Japanese joint venture. Continue reading »
By James Brewer, WSWS.ORG, a socialist organization
Six passengers are confirmed dead, 60 injured and 29 still missing after a massive cruise ship ran aground with 4,229 people on board off the coast of Italy Friday evening. After the sixth body was found early Monday, rescue operations were suspended and subsequently resumed, due to heavy seas, as the ship shifted deeper into the water.
The liner, Costa Concordia, the 29th largest in the world, is owned and operated by Costa Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise Lines. Designed to carry 3,700 passengers and 1,100 crew, the ship was close to full capacity when the disaster occurred.
Initially, Costa Cruises President Gianni Onorato made a statement that the ship was on its “regularly scheduled itinerary” from Civitavecchia (the port for Rome) to Savona, Italy when it struck “a submerged rock.” Onorato asserted that Captain Francesco Schettino “immediately understood the severity of the situation” and “performed a maneuver intended to protect both guests and crew.” Continue reading »
By David Walsh, WSWS.ORG
These loathsome actioners are one of the most exploitative vehicles served up by a degenerate Hollywood film industry. All stunts, kicks and chops, explosions, and CGI effects, they lack plots and even the semblance of character development. Any connection with reality is erased. They’re an insult to the intelligence of even children. Only conditioned morons can enjoy them, morons for whom suspension of disbelief is a way of life. —Eds.
Mission Impossible—Ghost Protocol // Directed by Brad Bird, written by Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec.
The fourth installment in the series, Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocolfollows the exploits of Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his Impossible Missions Force (IMF) team as they attempt to prevent the outbreak of a cataclysmic war between the US and Russia.
The new film gets down to business in Moscow, where Hunt is freed from prison by the efforts of IMF agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). He then leads those two in an operation to penetrate highly guarded archives in the Kremlin and locate files on a figure known as “Cobalt.” The latter, it turns out, is Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), a Swedish-born Russian nuclear strategist, now working on his own, who is convinced that a nuclear holocaust would help initiate a new and higher phase of human evolution. Hendricks plans to launch a Russian nuclear missile against a major American city, thus setting off a cataclysmic war. Continue reading »
