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 [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies

    Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies

    by Stephen Lendman Capitalism has succeeded in capturing governments around the world. Forget everything you learned about markets, economics and finance. Perhaps Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and other noted figures were wrong.  Central banks run today’s world. Major ones matter most. Money printing madness controls everything. Love doesn’t make the world go round. [...]

  • Can America Come to Terms with Boston Bombing Suspect's Stated Motives?

    Can America Come to Terms with Boston Bombing Suspect’s Stated Motives?

    Consortium News [1] / By Ray McGovern [2] Quick, somebody tell CIA Director John Brennan about the handwriting on the inside wall of the boat in which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was hiding before Boston-area police riddled it and him with bullets. Tell Brennan that Tsarnaev’s note is in plain English and that it needs neither translation nor interpretation in solving the [...]

  • 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 [...]

Should We Really Re-Elect This Fracking President?

 ANNOTATED NEWS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, SAVING THE PLANET  1 Response »
Jul 282012
 

By Black Agenda Report  managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Fracking is about as ethical and responsible as the brain deciding to mine the liver and sell its contents…But the US is run by capitalists, and for them fracking makes good sense. Capitalism after all, is based upon externalizing, offloading your cost onto someone less powerful, or onto nature itself.

Fracking is the energy industry’s answer to peak oil, catastrophically offloading the increased cost of oil and gas extraction onto farmers, ranchers, humans who drink water, and the environment itself. It’s about as ethical and responsible as the brain deciding to mine the liver and sell the contents. And it’s national energy policy under the Obama administration. Continue reading »

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FAIR DISPATCH: Paul Krugman Reads the New York Times

 BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CULTURE & CRITICISM, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA  Comments Off
Jul 282012
 

By Peter Hart, FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting)
Paul Krugman writes today (New York Times, 7/16/12) on media’s failure to factcheck campaign claims:

Perhaps in a better world we could count on the news media to sort through the conflicting claims. In this world, however, most voters get their news from short snippets on TV, which almost never contain substantive policy analysis. The print media do offer analysis pieces–but these pieces, out of a desire to seem “balanced,” all too often simply repeat the he-said-she-said of political speeches.

Paul Krugman

Trust me: you will see very few news analyses saying that Mr. Romney proposes huge tax cuts for the rich, with no plausible offset other than big benefit cuts for everyone else–even though this is the simple truth. Instead, you will see pieces reporting that “Democrats say” that this is what Mr. Romney proposes, matched with dueling quotes from Republican sources. Continue reading »

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Chavez Riding High in Polls

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTI-COMMUNISM, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, BETTER HUMANITY, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, DEBATING POINTS, GREAT HYPOCRISY, LatinAm-VENEZUELA  Comments Off
Jul 282012
 

By Stephen Lendman

“Venezuelans are rated as among the happiest in Latin America and the world…Social investment is why. Around 60% of government revenues go for healthcare, education, and other social and cultural benefits.  [By contrast and with obvious results] America’s budget goes largely for militarism, imperial wars, homeland repression, internal spying, banker bailouts, corporate giveaways, and tax cuts for rich elites already with too much…”

The photogenic Mr. Capriles: America’s man in Caracas. Will the mafiosi in Washington try to pull a Libya/Syria-type “humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela? Maybe. If they do, “vendepatrias” like Capriles are sure to play a prominent role.

Bolivarianism remains overwhelmingly popular. So is Chavez. He heads the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).  In 1999, he transformed the nation into a Bolivarian republic. It’s based on “solidarity, fraternity, love, justice, liberty and equality.”

He changed it politically, economically and socially. He established participatory democracy. Venezuela’s process shames America’s, Britain’s, France’s, and other Western states.  He constitutionally instituted basic social rights for everyone. They include universal health care, education, affordable housing, land reform, indigenous rights, and much more. Continue reading »

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