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 [...]

  • Should the US bomb Syria?

    Should the US bomb Syria?

    By Stephen Gowans, What’s Left There is no compelling evidence that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the rebel forces which seek its overthrow, and for purely military reasons, it’s highly unlikely that they have been used. Simply put, the Syrian army can kill more rebels with missiles, tanks and heavy artillery, even [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • CBS media turd Scott Pelley pontificates about US journalism

    CBS media turd Scott Pelley pontificates about US journalism

    The Problem With Journalism? Scott Pelley Blames the Internet By Peter Hart, FAIR When big-time reporters decide to try their hands at media criticism, the results are usually disappointing–but they can also be quite revealing.  So when a video of CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley started to making the rounds, the headlines associated with it piqued my interest. Over [...]

Alvaro Munera: An ex-bullfighter tells why he became an animal rights activist

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANIMAL DEFENDERS, ANIMAL MARTYRDOM, ANNOTATED NEWS, CONTROVERSY, INTERVIEWS, KULTURKAMPF  Comments Off
Mar 052012
 

An Ex-Bullfighter Tells His Story

INTERVIEW BY TONI L. QUEROL
VICE.COM
PHOTO COURTESY OF ÁLVARO MÚNERA

A bull named Terciopelo [Velvet] gored the Colombian bullfighter Álvaro Múnera, aka “El Pilarico,” in 1984, confining him to a wheelchair for life. Múnera was 18 years old back then. His best friend, “El Yiyo,” was gored to death months later, and the manager of both bullfighters committed suicide three years after that.

Múnera became a hardcore animal rights defender and nothing less than the Antichrist for tauromachy [the art of bullfighting] aficionados. He currently works in the Council of the City of Medellín, using his position to defend the rights of disabled people and to promote anti-bullfighting campaigns.

vice.com: How did you decide to be a bullfighter?

Álvaro Múnera: I was born in Medellín, where my dad had taken me to see bullfights since I was four years old. The atmosphere at home was totally pro-taurino [taurino is the Spanish adjective for everything relating to bullfighting culture]. We didn’t talk about football or any other thing, it was just bulls. Bullfighting was the center of the world for my dad. Since I grew up immersed in this taurino atmosphere, it was logical that at the age of 12, I decided to be a bullfighter. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 10:08 pm

Too Much: Chronicles of inequality (March 5, 2012)

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS, CLASS STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Mar 052012
 

March 5, 2012
THIS WEEK

The best book on inequality since the Great Recession began may soon become a major motion picture playing at a theater near you — if a new independent film fundraising campaign succeeds.

Three documentary film artists are now working to give The Spirit Level, the landmark 2010 book by British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, a fresh new visual dimension. The effort has the blessing of the Equality Trust, the UK organizing initiative The Spirit Level inspired.

The Spirit Level mixes text and graphs and makes an incredibly powerful case for the importance of achieving a significantly more equal world. The online “crowd-funding” campaign for the new Spirit Level documentary features a delightful short video that sums up the book’s central findings. Take a look and smile.

In this week’s Too Much, we’re offering up still another smile-inducer: the story of the major mainstream global pol who last week busted the consensus that has — for over 30 years — kept a lid on the taxes rich people pay. The details below. Continue reading »
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 Posted by at 6:43 pm

Blum’s Anti-Empire Report: The Saga of Bradley Manning

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, CORPORATE CRIMES, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, ROTTEN CULTURE  Comments Off
Mar 052012
 

The Anti-Empire Report | March 5, 2012

by William Blum
www.killinghope.org

The Saga of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks, to be put to ballad and film

“Defense lawyers say Manning was clearly a troubled young soldier whom the Army should never have deployed to Iraq or given access to classified material while he was stationed there … They say he was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay soldier at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the U.S. armed forces.” (Associated Press, February 3)

It’s unfortunate and disturbing that Bradley Manning’s attorneys have chosen to consistently base his legal defense upon the premise that personal problems and shortcomings are what motivated the young man to turn over hundreds of thousands of classified government files to Wikileaks. They should not be presenting him that way any more than Bradley should be tried as a criminal or traitor. He should be hailed as a national hero. Yes, even when the lawyers are talking to the military mind. May as well try to penetrate that mind and find the freest and best person living there. Bradley also wears a military uniform. Here are Manning’s own words from an online chat: “If you had free reign over classified networks … and you saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … what would you do? … God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. … I want people to see the truth … because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

Even Assange’s Forbes profile reads:  “Information may want to be free, but sometimes it needs a little help. Genius provocateur behind Wikileaks, hard at work providing startling glimpse of near future, where confidential and classified documents are routinely made available to the general public. Governments and corporations with dirty laundry should be afraid, very afraid.”

Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 5:40 pm

The Myth of Capitalist Democracy

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CLASS STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Mar 052012
 

The Myth of Capitalist Democracy
By the editorial team at The Red Phoenix |  Thank you, compagni.

Even if you vote for the loser of an election, you still demonstrate consent for the process by legitimizing it enough to cast a ballot.

Capitalist “democracies” always pride themselves on how democratic their systems are, being that despite any blatant differences in economic power or existing societal prejudices based around race, gender, sexuality or nationality, the system is fair and just because of its elections. “One man, one vote” is the democratic principle that ensures that “the will of the people” is what decides electoral outcomes. Yet, when we peel back capitalism’s star-spangled “fair and equal” wrapper, what we see is anything but fair and equal. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 4:55 pm

The Absurdity of Intellectual Property

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Mar 052012
 


By the Red Phoenix
Thank you, compagni.

Beginning at midnight on January 18th, 2012, Wikipedia blacked out its website in protest to two bills, SOPA and PIPA, while other websites undertook similar actions. The following day, the federal government shut down Megaupload.com, a popular file sharing website, claiming they constituted a criminal organization circulating copywritten material. In the battle of “free internet” versus “intellectual property,” the battle has become heated, with rival factions of the ruling class taking opposing sides for one singular motive — profit. Internet based companies like Google and Wikipedia have come out against SOPA due to the regulation and restriction of content, and opening of legal liability for user-posted content linked to their sites, while the film and television industry support SOPA and PIPA in order to maximize their profit margins by cracking down on distribution of their products without compensation. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 3:49 pm

The Passing of Andrew Breitbart: Know Thine Enemies

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS  Comments Off
Mar 052012
 

By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
The culture of “nice” embraced by establishment liberals reeks of hypocrisy and opportunism. And it’s self-defeating, too. National television has contributed a great deal to the implantation of “polite discourse,” but polite in the mouths of crooks and criminals is a tool for deceit. And how long can liberals remain in denial about the ugliness of the situation in the midst of what is clearly a developing civil war?—eds 


Even contemptible characters like Breitbart find groupies and admirers.
Celebrity is a powerful magnet for babes.

“Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and journalist, died suddenly on Thursday morning, according to his website Big Journalism. He was 43. The site said that Breitbart died of ‘natural causes’ shortly after midnight on Thursday.” So the Huff Post Media of March 1, 2012 told us. And with statements posted on the same site, the so-called “liberals” that Breitbart used to rail against and do absolutely scandalous dirty tricks against are being so bloody polite. For example, Shirley Sherrod (see below) said: “”My prayers go out to Mr. Breitbart family as they cope through this very difficult time.” Media Matters, which did much to expose Breitbart’s dishonesty, said: “We’ve disagreed more than we’ve found common ground, but there was never any question of Andrew’s passion for and commitment to what he believed.” And then there’s Arianna Huffington herself: “I was asked many times this morning for my thoughts on what Andrew meant to the political world, but all I can think of at the moment is what Andrew meant to me as a friend, starting from when we worked together — his passion, his exuberance, his fearlessness. And above all, what I’m thinking of at the moment is his amazing wife Susie and their four beautiful young children. My love and thoughts are with them right now.” Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 2:22 pm
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