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
  • Rise Up or Die

    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 [...]

  • Dissent or Terror: New Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide

    Dissent or Terror: New Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide

    MADISON, WI — DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy today released the results of a year-long investigation: “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.”The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details [...]

  • Chronicles of Inequality [TOO MUCH, 20 May 2013)

    Chronicles of Inequality [TOO MUCH, 20 May 2013)

    May 20, 2013 THIS WEEK Oh, please, spare us any more pious declarations. After a week of “IRS scandal,” we simply can’t bear another bogus claim that we’re witnessing one of the “most shameful abuses of government power in 20th-century American history.”We’re witnessing no such thing. Let’s be clear about what’s really happened: An understaffed and overburdened IRS office [...]

  • America: A Modern-Day Sparta

    America: A Modern-Day Sparta

    BY STEPHEN LENDMAN  Permanent war is longstanding policy. America deplores peace. Throughout its history, it’s waged war annually at home and/or abroad. Today it does so globally.  Giving peace a chance is loathed. Direct or proxy wars rage in multiple countries. Did you like this? Share it:

  • The decomposition of American democracy

    The decomposition of American democracy

    BY TOM CARTER, WSWS.ORG  On Thursday, Assistant Defense Secretary Michael Sheehan told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the war on terror would continue at least another 10 or 20 years. Alluding to last month’s lockdown of Boston, he said the president and the military would continue to assert “wartime” powers, unchecked by Congress or [...]

  • Connecticut May Let Students Opt Out of Dissection

    Connecticut May Let Students Opt Out of Dissection

    by Alicia Graef Connecticut students who have a conscientious objection to dissection may soon have the right to opt out if lawmakers pass An Act Concerning Dissection Choice. Students have come forward to express their discomfort and objections to learning about the study of life by wasting the lives of innocent animals. Some are met with [...]

  • Russia Catches CIA Spy Red-Handed

    Russia Catches CIA Spy Red-Handed

    by Stephen Lendman America never permitted the bipolar rivalry to die down, and now given its taste for world domination it is wantonly creating new flashpoints for lethal confrontation. The upshot may be another arms race and a world that much closer to WW3. CIA agents operate most everywhere. They don’t promote friendly relations. They’re [...]

  • America Honors Its Worst

    America Honors Its Worst

    by Stephen Lendman Presidential Medals of Freedom are awarded annually. They mock what they claim to represent. Many go to deplorable recipients.  Previous dishonorees include GHW Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair, Shimon Peres, Margaret Thatcher, Alvaro Uribe, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and Alan Greenspan among others. Did you like [...]

The self-immolation of Moshe Silman

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, ISRAEL  Comments Off
Jul 192012
 

By Chris Mardsen, WSWS.ORG


The self-immolation of Moshe Silman raises fundamental questions of political perspective before workers and youth in Israel and throughout the Middle East.

Silman’s was a desperate act, for which the Israeli ruling elite is entirely culpable. The appalling personal circumstances that drove him to douse himself with petrol, leaving him near death with burns to 90 percent of his body, are well known.  His suicide note is eloquent testimony to two things: how even a moderately successful small businessman can be plunged into abject poverty under the impact of the deepening crisis of Israeli and world capitalism, and, secondly, the casual indifference of the political class and the state authorities. Continue reading »

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 Posted by at 1:56 pm