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
  • The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties

    The major sea change in media discussions of Obama and civil liberties

    The controversies over the IRS and especially the AP phone records appear to have long-lasting effects By Glenn Greenwald,  guardian.co.uk  Barack Obama Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images Due to the controversies over the IRS and (especially) the DOJ’s attack on AP’s news gathering process, media outlets have suddenly decided that President Obama has a very poor record [...]

  • Argentina’s General Videla and the “war on terror”

    Argentina’s General Videla and the “war on terror”

    By Bill Van Auken, wsws.org Gen. Jorge Rafael Videla died May 17 at the age of 87 as the result of injuries suffered from a fall in a prison shower. He was remembered as the head of a savage military dictatorship that between 1976 and 1983 murdered and “disappeared” some 30,000 Argentine workers, socialist militants, [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary "Citizen Koch" To Appease Koch Brothers

    PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary “Citizen Koch” To Appease Koch Brothers

    By Brendan Fischer, PRWatch | Report “Citizen Koch,” a documentary about money in politics focused on the Wisconsin uprising, was shunned by PBS for fear of offending billionaire industrialist David Koch, who has given $23 million to public television, according to Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. The dispute highlights the increasing role of private money in “public” television and raises [...]

  • Why Obama Will Walk Away Unscathed by the Current Political Scandals

    Why Obama Will Walk Away Unscathed by the Current Political Scandals

    by Pascal Robert, Black Agenda Report Don’t worry about Barack Obama. He’s far too useful to the rulers of America to be derailed by scandal, or even a combination of scandals. “Obama’s neoliberal government giveaways to private corporations and mercenary foreign policy already make him too valuable to the guardians of American empire to have [...]

  • Obama's War on Free Expression

    Obama’s War on Free Expression

    by Stephen Lendman It’s the most fundamental right. Without it all others are endangered. Obama’s waging war to destroy it. He’s done so throughout his tenure.  He targeted AP. He did so unjustifiably. A previous article discussed it. Did you like this? Share it:

  • The Jesuit Pope – Who is Francis and who he pretends to be

    The Jesuit Pope – Who is Francis and who he pretends to be

    Written by Esquerda Marxista editorial board Wednesday, 15 May 2013 The election of Pope Francis marks a turn in the prolonged crisis of the Catholic Church. It is important for revolutionaries to understand the reasons for the ongoing struggle within the Church. Far from moving to the left, Francis is trying to entrench the Church in [...]

  • Apple CEO defends multi-billion-dollar tax dodge

    Apple CEO defends multi-billion-dollar tax dodge

    By Andre Damon, wsws.org   Apple CEO Tim Cook used his appearance Tuesday at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations—called to investigate Apple’s evasion of billions of dollars in taxes—to call for a sharp reduction in the corporate tax rate. The senators on the committee, Democratic and Republican alike, agreed with Cook [...]

The progressive case for Obama —(annotated)

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, BETTER HUMANITY, CLASS STRUGGLE, CLIMATE CHANGE, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, DEBATING POINTS, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, IMPERIALISM  1 Response »
Nov 052012
 

Drones, the drug war and income inequality are important. But a vote against Obama only makes other issues worse


President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks at a campaign event at George Mason University, Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) (Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster)

Editor’s Note:  We present this article, “the other side of the contra Obama argument” because we do not pretend to absolutism in our “certainties” (itself an absolutism), and because Coyote’s plea is among the best we have found of its kind.  Actually he’s so “reasonable” that he comes close to winning his case. Indeed, he makes a compelling argument up to a point…and then the structure sort of collapses. Leaving aside the fact that Coyote in his current incarnation is a self-professed “Buddhist priest”, and I have no use for any type of religion, even Buddhism (which, admittedly, seems less harmful than most), I found some of Coyote’s assertions and equations rankling, superficial, conventional, and hard to accept. (Mother Theresa an example of goodness balancing the universal evil of Hitler? Apparently Coyote never read Hitchens’ able deconstruction of the “beatified nun” or else he would have looked for a more formidable angel. But these are really quibbles. Coyote is a lifelong leftwinger and his heart is obviously on the, let’s call it, “the healing side of humanity.”) Continue reading »

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The progressive case against Obama

 ALERTS, AMERICAN STUDIES, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CONSERVATIVES & REACTION, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, PLUTOCRATIC POWER  3 Responses »
Nov 052012
 

Bottom line: The president is complicit in creating an increasingly unequal — and unjust — society
BY MATT STOLLER
SATURDAY, OCT 27, 2012 08:00 AM EDT


President Barack Obama (Credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas)
A few days ago, I participated in a debate with the legendary antiwar dissident Daniel Ellsberg on Huffington Post live on the merits of the Obama administration, and what progressives should do on Election Day. Ellsberg had written a blog post arguing that, though Obama deserves tremendous criticism, voters in swing states ought to vote for him, lest they operate as dupes for a far more malevolent Republican Party. This attitude is relatively pervasive among Democrats, and it deserves a genuine response. As the election is fast approaching, this piece is an attempt at laying out the progressive case for why one should not vote for Barack Obama for reelection, even if you are in a swing state. Continue reading »

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There’s the stinking corporate media and then there’s Fox News and coprophilic Bill O’Reilly

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTIWAR, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, GREAT HYPOCRISY, INDECENT SLIMEBALLS, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, SCUMWATCH  Comments Off
Nov 052012
 

At almost 6ft 5-in, Bill O’Reilly could easily elicit Full Metal Jacket‘s DI’s quip, “I didn’t know shit could be stacked that high.”

Come to think of it, to call this blight on American communications a pile of excrement is almost to give excrement itself a bad name. Maddox called him, appropriately, “a giant self-collapsing vortex of hypocrisy.” He was being kind.  Read the rest of his note of appreciation, it’s pretty candid.

Anyway, here he is, this pretentious, blubbering, disgusting buffoon and shameless bully proving his worth to his masters, like a good running dog that he is, this time silencing Ron Paul who, whatever differences we may have with him due to his extreme libertarian views, is neither dishonest nor dumb about America’s foreign policy. Note that O’Reilly cuts Paul off precisely after he’s been saying a few hard truths about US foreign policy…and is on the brink of explaining why “the world hates us.” Heh. Fat chance. Some other time, Ron.

By the way, just for foisting the likes of Bill O’Reilly on the American consciousness, for constantly instilling obscurantism, hatred and enormous lies,  media baron Rupert Murdoch deserves to be given hard life with no parole, but only after a generous public flogging.  And he’s being lucky because the punishment hardly fits the crime.—Sean Lenihan


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Public Banking Works

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS  1 Response »
Nov 052012
 

By Stephen Lendman

Publicly-owned banks work as intended. Colonial America had them for 25 years. Tax and inflation-free prosperity followed.

Money created produced economic growth. It ended when Bank of England scoundrels regained control. Public banks aren’t predatory profiteers. They’re not beholden to Wall Street, shareholders, or greedy corporate executives. They serve communities, states or nations responsibly. It works the same way everywhere they exist.

North Dakota is America’s only public banking state. It’s 100% state owned. It was established in 1919. It partners responsibly with private banks. Instead of cutting back like other states, North Dakota experiences growth. It passes on benefits to residents.

It has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate. In September 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked it number one at 3.0%. During the height of the 2008 economic crisis, North Dakota had its largest budget surplus in state history. Benefits were shared with residents.

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When will the Killing War in Iran Begin? It Already Has

 ANNOTATED NEWS, ANTIWAR, BLACK OPS & FALSE FLAGS, CENTRAL ASIA, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, COUPS & CIVIL WAR, The Middle East, US Foreign Policy  Comments Off
Nov 052012
 

“Economic sanctions are, at their core, a war against public health.”
–The New England Journal of Medicine [1]

By Stephen Gowans, What’s Left

While campaigns are organized to deter the United States and Israel from acting on threats to launch an air war against Iran, both countries, in league with the European Union (winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize) carry on a low-intensity war against Iran that is likely to be causing more human suffering and death than strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities would. This is a war against public health, aimed at the most vulnerable: cancer patients, hemophiliacs, kidney dialysis patients, and those awaiting transplants. Its victims are unseen, dying anonymously in hospitals, not incinerated in spectacular explosions touched off by cruise missiles and bunker buster bombs. But ordinary Iranians who can’t get needed medications are every bit as much victims of war as those blown apart by bombs. And yet, we think, that as long as the bombs don’t rain down, that peace has been preserved. Perhaps it has, in formal terms, but bleeding to death in the crater of a bomb, or bleeding to death because you can’t get hemophilia drugs, is, in either case, death. Continue reading »

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Rebel or Perish

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CLASS STRUGGLE, CORPORATE CRIMES, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, LIBERAL BETRAYALS  1 Response »
Nov 052012
 

By Stephen Lendman


The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel: Classic establishment liberal—delusional or wittingly misleading—take your pick.

A previous article discussed what perhaps is the most perilous time in world history. American-led Western societies are waging war on humanity.

Imperial war is a way of life. Social democracies are being eliminated. Freedom is on the chopping block to be crushed. Elections are meaningless and farcical. America’s are the worst. They mock legitimacy. Money power controls them. It runs the country and most societies. People have no say. They’re ill-served and stomped on by governments in bed with corporatist rogues.

Media scoundrels serve wealth and power interests. Managed news misinformation is featured. Former Wall Street Journal writer Greg Jaffe now writes on military issues for the Washington Post. Continue reading »

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