• Keystone XL Activists Labeled Possible Eco-Terrorists

    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

    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

    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

    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 [...]

  • Six reasons why choosing Hong Kong is a brilliant move by Edward Snowden

    Six reasons why choosing Hong Kong is a brilliant move by Edward Snowden

    By MsExpat, a journalist and essayist who lives in New York and Hong Kong and Fellow of The Mighty Corrente Building. Originally published at Corrente. I live in Hong Kong. And when the news broke that Snowden had decided to take refuge in my city, I was puzzled at first. But then, as I read [...]

  • Europe is getting restless: Obama's Soft Totalitarianism

    Europe is getting restless: Obama’s Soft Totalitarianism

    06/17/2013 People around the world were shocked to learn of the extent of US snooping. This anti-Obama poster comes from Hong Kong. Europe Must Protect Itself from America A Commentary by Jakob Augstein Is Barack Obama a friend? Revelations about his government’s vast spying program call that assumption into doubt. The European Union must protect [...]

  • Iran To Send 4,000 Troops To Aid President Assad

    Iran To Send 4,000 Troops To Aid President Assad

    By Robert Fisk Source: The Independent Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region. Did you like this? Share it:

  • Camping Out: Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful"

    Camping Out: Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful”

    From our archives—    Camping Out: Roberto Benigni’s “Life Is Beautiful” Kurt Jacobsen [from New Politics, vol. 7, no. 3 (new series), whole no. 27, Summer 1999] KURT JACOBSEN is a research associate in political science at the University of Chicago and reviews films for the London Guardian. Prefatory note: As a movie buff I was baffled and [...]

Trans Pacific Partnership: Corporate Escape From Accountability

 ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CITIZEN TOOLS  Comments Off
Jul 092012
 

By Paul Craig Roberts



Information has been leaked about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is being negotiated in secret by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk. Six hundred corporate “advisors” are in on the know, but not Congress or the media. Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate trade subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the TPP, has not been permitted to see the text or to know the content.

The TPP has been called a “one-percenter” power tool. The agreement essentially abolishes the accountability of foreign corporations to governments of countries with which they trade. Indeed, the agreement makes governments accountable to corporations for costs imposed by regulations, including health, safety and environmental regulations. The agreement gives corporations the right to make governments pay them for the cost of complying with the regulations of government. One wonders how long environmental, labor, and financial regulation can survive when the costs of compliance are imposed on the taxpayers of countries and not on the economic activity that results in spillover effects such as pollution. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 10:16 pm

Philip Wollen, Australian Philanthropist, Former VP of Citibank, Makes Blazing Animal Rights Speech

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANIMAL DEFENDERS, ANIMAL MARTYRDOM, ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS  2 Responses »
Jul 092012
 

Animals: Partial and full allies in unexpected places

Editor’s Note: Australian philanthropist Phillip Wollen’s credentials come first from being a top corporate player, a former vice-president of Citibank, not exactly our favorite kind of people, but his sincere and persuasive stance in defense of animals is something worthy of applause. Too bad that many people will find him (and his position) an obvious subject to be dismissed at once as one more case of “the rich loving animals more than people,” a charge I’ve heard often enough in my travels on the left, and which, frankly, does carry much documentable truth.  But, friends, we’re TGP, not some dogmatic place that substitutes allegiance to some orthodoxy for flexible thinking. People are often fragmented in their behavior and moral vision, and they have to be judged “on balance” for the good and bad they may do.

Of course, a huge portion of the super-rich can be classified as worthless—if not downright criminal—insufferable and pretentious idiots, and far too many in their ranks won’t make it through the eye of the needle (and neither will their overpaid accountants). But exceptions do occur, not enough to save their class from hell, where it belongs, but enough to warrant caution and kindness in making individual evaluations. So read, ponder, and do not let Wollen’s background influence how you receive his presentation. In the final analysis it’s what he says that counts. —Patrice Greanville.
[Crossposted with Freefromharm.org] Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 7:23 pm

Iran won’t crack

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, IMPERIALISM, IRAN  Comments Off
Jul 092012
 

By Pepe Escobar

Let’s start sledgehammer style. Iran won’t crack. Iran won’t crack. Iran won’t crack. No sledgehammer, though, is likely to perforate the limitless fog of delusion hovering over a US elite that a relentless propaganda campaign tries to sell as “the international community.”

See, for instance, this bland op-ed, where we discover that “the international community is now on watch for cracks in Iran’s defiant stance: Will increased sanctions compel Tehran to make real concessions and allow for a diplomatic solution to the standoff?” Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 6:37 pm

POISONED PENS: The Rise and Fall of Cocaine Cola

 ANTI-COMMUNISM, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CONSERVATIVES & REACTION, DEBATING POINTS, INSULTS & RANTS, THE COLOR LINE  Comments Off
Jul 092012
 

Editor’s Note: From time to time we offer our readers examples of rightwing communications ranging in quality and intent from frank lunacy to insidious distortions of fact.  The piece below qualifies as the latter.  Served on the libertarian site LewRockwell.com,(1) which bills itself as “anti-war, anti-state, and pro-market,” it packs the peculiar mix that makes libertarian rants so frustrating at times, a combination of useful facts distorted by ludicrous statements that have little respect for truth.  In Jarvis’ piece, the front part with its historical summary of the Coca Cola company is sound enough, but his tendentious attack in the bottom part, focusing on what he (like all libertarians) regards as a suffocating government, is pure poppycock. For one thing, the courts would not have given the black defendants in the case he cites the millions they did if there had been no sufficient proof.  To make that part of the story stick we would have to believe Jarvis that Coca-Cola was a pauper that could not properly defend himself, and/or that the courts were uniformly part of “the government”, a murky classification that confuses the executive with the judicial branch. Corrupt and compromised as American courts may be—especially the SCOTUS, which has become under Roberts a highly politicized institution—most members of the judiciary remain a power apart.  But, friends, such realities do not usually carry much weight in the face of a determined corporatist’s doctrinaire compulsions. Perhaps more offensive, it takes a great deal of effort to ignore the transparent racist undertones of Jarvis’ tract, who the bioblurb aptly describes as “an unreconstructed Southerner.”
Caveat emptor!—P. Greanville
(1) In fairness, LewRockwell.com however does perform a valuable service due to its principled antiwar posture, often allowing antiwar voices from the left to be featured in its pages. Whether a libertarian antiwar stance is consistent with an overwhelming love for savage capitalism is something to be discussed another day.
Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 6:05 pm

The Tea Party’s 1776 Shtick: History Mangled

 ANNOTATED NEWS, CITIZEN TOOLS, ROTTEN CULTURE, SCUMWATCH  Comments Off
Jul 092012
 

America’s revolutionary generation, new research documents, lived in a society much more equal than our own. And early Americans prized that equality, an inconvenient reality for conservatives today.

By Sam Pizzigati, Too Much

Not too long ago, Americans only dressed up in George Washington wigs, waistcoats, and tri-corner hats on the Fourth of July. But then the Tea Party came along, and colonial garb started turning up at rallies all year around.

Our colonial top 1 percent took in just 8.9 percent of colonial household income.

In quick order, the legacy of 1776 started “belonging” to the anti-“Big Government” Tea Party crowd. The Founders, claimed Tea Party types, wouldn’t abide government interference in their lives. And neither should we. If we today just stayed true to 1776, the United States would remain forever “exceptional.” Continue reading »

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The Obscure Charm Of The Plutocracy

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CLASS STRUGGLE  Comments Off
Jul 092012
 

By T Bogg

..and here is what Mitt Romney’s people will be attempting to defuse on Monday after Mitt’s Hamptonspalooza:

A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. “I don’t think the common person is getting it,” she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. “Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 2:33 pm

BRAVO! Man’s Stealth Moonlit Rescue of a Chained Dog After Law Fails to Help

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANIMAL DEFENDERS, ANIMAL MARTYRDOM, BETTER HUMANITY  2 Responses »
Jul 092012
 

By Laura Simpson
Written by Stephen West
Thank you, Care2.com

Zoey in her new digs.

Being the head volunteer at a local animal rescue, I received a phone call from a woman in Montreal, Canada who was communicating with her friend on Facebook about an abandoned dog on the Mexican border. After receiving an approximate location and after investigation, I found that Zoey (a name I gave her), a female American Boxer mix, wasn’t actually abandoned — she was chained up in front of a trailer. Animal Control was monitoring the situation to see if the dog was being fed. After seeing the dog, it was ridiculous to me that Animal Control would be monitoring this situation. The dog was skin and bones, was covered with open sores, and appeared to be deaf and obviously being neglected. The neighbors said she had never been off that chain, ever. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 11:47 am

In The Name Of My Father, Part Two: In the shadow of the corporate state madhouse

 ANNOTATED NEWS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, BETTER HUMANITY, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM  Comments Off
Jul 092012
 

By Phil Rockstroh

One of the Candler mansions, built 1916) on Druid Hills (Atlanta)

My parents modest, single-level, brick home stands on property that was once part of a sprawling estate owned by the Candler family, Atlanta’s Coca-Cola patricians. Built during the post-war, 1950s building boom, the small house is situated in a deep ravine that once served as the grounds of the Candler’s private zoo. On the hilltop above, the point of highest elevation in the Atlanta metro area, the Candler family, in the tradition of the powerful and elite, laid claim to the highest ground. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 11:24 am

Sham Libyan Elections

 ANNOTATED NEWS, GREAT HYPOCRISY, IMPERIALISM, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA  Comments Off
Jul 092012
 

By Stephen Lendman
Noble America, bringing “democracy” through bombs to a country near you. The official line, straight from the Big Hypocrite at the State Department, and of course, repeated by the White House Liar in Chief. “Libyans can finally forge a democracy that’s subject to the will of its people.”  Oh, yea. You can bank on that.

“Demonstration elections” (for the benefit of gullible Americans), are always quickly legitimized by the whoremedia. Here’s the inevitable shot of jubilant voters, courtesy of CBS. Similar reports and photos are plastered all over other print and broadcast media. “Libyan men hold their elections ID cards while celebrating election day in Tripoli, Libya, Saturday, July 7, 2012. Jubilant Libyan voters marked a major step toward democracy after decades of erratic one-man rule, casting their ballots Saturday in the first parliamentary election after last year’s overthrow and killing of longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.”

In 2011, Washington-led NATO forces destroyed Libya. It was ravaged, not liberated.  Humanitarian intervention was cover to wage war. “Responsibility to protect (R2P)” was subterfuge to colonize and plunder another country.

Tens of thousands were killed. Vital social services were lost. Imperial control replaced Jamahiriya governance. Pre-2011 Libya no longer exists. Libyans call what NATO wrought “dimacracy.” Dima in Arabic is blood. NATO gains control by shedding it. 

An illegitimate National Transitional Council (NTC) was appointed. Puppet leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil was made chairman.

Mahmoud Jibril became prime minister. Abdurraheem el-Keib replaced him. He’s a businessman and prominent Tripoli family scion. He taught at the UAE’s Petroleum Institute. Oil giants fund it.

Last August, Washington parachuted him in as its man. Protracted conflict continues. Libyans want to live free. Their struggle won’t end until NATO’s removed. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 10:04 am