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 [...]

Inside Story Americas: Is the Occupy movement being hijacked? (VIDEO)

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, OWS, POLICE & REPRESSION, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, TACTICS & STRATEGIES  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 

By Al-Jazeera English

After a quiet winter and with a rival group 99% Spring emerging, we ask how is the Occupy movement developing. Inside Story Americas, discusses with guests: Nathan Schneider, Karunga Gashusha and Mike King.

THE SPECTER OF A POPULAR AWAKENING catching fire amid a hitherto deeply indoctrinated population has clearly begun to worry influential sectors of the American ruling class.  A number of “solutions” must have been discussed, at least in the precincts where such things are quietly discussed by the “brain trust” of the plutocracy—usually prostituted academics, p.r. hacks, and naturally prominent members of the “official” party system which in America, as almost any intelligent person knows, amounts to a monopoly. Realizing that a resolute confrontation could inflame the rebels  even further, the ruling orders have tried so far a variety of tactics, from suggestions of all-out repression to faux sympathy to co-optation.
WATCH VIDEO BELOW

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 Posted by at 10:05 pm

ANNOTATED: A Tea Partier Just Called Me “Communist.” Watch My SLAM DUNK Response

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 


Archcorrupt Joe McCarthy, symbol of the capitalist establishment’s infinite hypocrisy.

Editor’s Note: I detest the Daily Kos and its legion of narrow-minded, smug centrist liberaloids, a vast majority of whom are happy to rally every four years around the excrement put forth by the Democratic party urging them to “cast their vote” to keep the country from going to the devil—which is where it already is—and getting deeper all the time.  They do this in the name of “realism,” the lesser evil, but it’s really an incurable bourgeois temperament in action; a reformist way of looking at capitalism and all it entails, from its heinous crimes to its rotten culture, without ever wanting or dreaming of crossing the line.  That’s why DK—in practical terms a political subsidiary of the Democratic party— is awash in Obots, and more will surface as the revolting candidates and mouthpieces of the Rethuglicans, on cue as it were, scare ever more centrists into action to “stop the barbarians in November.”  Meanwhile, behind the fatuous hot air that underscores so many discussions at DK, we normally find superficial notions incapable of ever coalescing into an structural analysis of the crisis we face. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 3:38 pm

THE GLOBAL SYSTEMIC CRISIS. France, the “Big Republican Earthquake” and its Geopolitical Impact

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, EU.FRANCE, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 

By GEAB

A 2012 French election much more important geopolitically than the 2012 US election


Sarkozy: This repugnant piece of scum, a member of the French bourgeoisie, is George Bush’s equivalent in France, and Obama’s more than willing accomplice in neocolonialist adventures. Unfortunately, as in the US, the ascension of a “socialist” candidate to the French presidency will mean absolutely nothing, except a change in cosmetics. —Eds Continue reading »
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 Posted by at 1:06 pm

5 Countries That Do It Better: How Sexual Prudery Makes America a Less Healthy and Happy Place

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CONSERVATIVES & REACTION, CULTURE & CRITICISM  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 

By Alex Henderson, AlterNet


Deformed and repressed creatures like Santorum fester in America in a culture of centuries-old prudishness and hypocrisy. The perfect soil for such audacious backwardism.

To extreme social conservatives of the far right, the word “prude” is not an insult — it’s a badge of honor. “Prudes,” they would argue, should be upheld as exemplary role models because a sexually repressive society is also a society with fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer sexually transmitted diseases. But not only do the facts not bear that out, they also demonstrate that the exact opposite is true. Countries that embrace many of the things social conservatives detest (comprehensive sex education, pro-gay legislation, nude or topless beaches, legal or decriminalized prostitution, adult entertainment) tend to be countries that have less sexual dysfunction than the United States, not more. And when one compares sexual attitudes in the United States to sexual attitudes in Western Europe, it becomes evident that there is a strong correlation between social conservatism and higher rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 10:43 am

China Scandals: Crisis in the Communist Party

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CHINA  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 

By William Pfaff, Truthdig
Thank you, Truthdig

Events suggest that the long-overdue crisis of China’s Communist Party has arrived. Evidence is provided by the affair of the Chinese police chief who tried to defect to the United States and was turned away, the sensational slaying of the mysterious Englishman, about whom Britain’s foreign secretary seems to have known more than he told us at the time of the killing, and more than he should have known, had the mysterious Englishman been merely the innocuous expatriate he purported to be, and the British government had claimed that he was. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 10:15 am

Defending the Indefensible

 ANNOTATED NEWS, POLITICAL ECONOMY  Comments Off
Apr 192012
 

Editor’s Note: Although one is justified to think that many lucid critics of American society and capitalism can be found in the ranks of acedemics (and especially renegade academics), the overwhelming majority works within and for the system.  In that sense, especially in bourgeois social science departments such as sociology, economics and politics, their role is one of apologetics and outright academic prostitution. Schiller is just one example among many. Journalism schools are no exception as they routinely manufacture cogs for the corporate media machine, that being their primary assigned role in the system.—PG

by Stephen Lendman

 
R. Schiller, another leading resident of the great bourgeois social science whorehouse.

Robert Shiller is Yale University Professor of Economics and Professor of Finance and Fellow at the International Center of Finance, Yale School of Management.  He’s best known perhaps for his 2000 book titled, “Irrational Exuberance.” At the height of the tech bubble, he got it right predicting it would burst. His analysis included structural, cultural, and psychological factors. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 9:58 am