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
  • Apple’s tax dodge: The case for public ownership

    Apple’s tax dodge: The case for public ownership

    Guest Editorials— By Andre Damon, wsws.org The US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report Monday showing that electronics giant Apple Inc. uses offshore tax shelters to avoid taxes on the majority of its income and cheated the US government out of $9 billion in 2012 alone. That same day, a tornado leveled the town [...]

  • 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 [...]

  • Argentinean Nightmare

    Argentinean Nightmare

    Patricio Pron’s “My Father’s Ghost is Climbing in the Rain” by CHARLES R. LARSON, Counterpunch Patricio Pron’s publishers refer to My Father’s Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain as an autobiographical novel.  More likely, the book is an autobiography with a few details altered to protect the innocent, although the innocent became victims long ago.  The book [...]

  • Stockholm Smolders

    Stockholm Smolders

    Xenophobia Rising in Sweden by S.C. HAHN—Stockholm. •••• Stockholm has been the scene of riots this week, to much of the world’s surprise, with the unrest flaring up in immigrant-dominated neighborhoods on the city’s periphery. The Stockholm media reports cars burning in at least fifteen suburbs, stone-throwing against police, firefighters and ambulance personnel, injured police [...]

  • Benghazi: Imperialist Outpost

    Benghazi: Imperialist Outpost

    Politicized-Militarized Diplomacy by NORMAN POLLACK I am not naïve.  Embassies have been centers of intrigue, propaganda disseminators, bases for political intervention in a nation’s internal affairs, intermediaries for the promotion of markets and investments, etc., practices not confined to those representing the US, and hardly confined to recent times.  That said, Benghazi (technically, a consulate), signifies, as [...]

  • OpEds—Capitalism: "Horror Without End"

    OpEds—Capitalism: “Horror Without End”

    by John Peterson, Socialist Appeal The stream of distressing news seems to flow endlessly: School shootings from Colorado to Connecticut. Factory collapses and explosions from Bangladesh to Texas. Terrorist attacks from Pakistan to Boston. Crumbling infrastructure from Mexico City to Minneapolis. Kidnappings and torture from Ciudad Juarez to Cleveland. War and civil war from Syria [...]

  • How Medea Benjamin got to heckle Obama

    How Medea Benjamin got to heckle Obama

    Speeches given in front of ‘vetted” sycophantic audiences, behind closed doors. A glorified photo-op perfectly apt for a manipulated democracy.  Did you like this? Share it:

  • Obama’s Orwellian rhetoric

    Obama’s Orwellian rhetoric, Congo war crimes, Jailed for silence, DOJ assault on Fox Source: RT.com On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin and political commentator Sam Sacks go over the Orwellian rhetoric in Obama’s latest foreign policy speech. Abby highlights a recent UN investigation bringing to light crimes against humanity committed by a [...]

Delusions of the Liberal Intelligentsia: 10 Myths About Obama and the Democrats

 ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTIWAR, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, BLACK OPS & FALSE FLAGS, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, IMPERIALISM, IRAN  1 Response »
Nov 132012
 


by JASON HIRTHLER
As we head into The Chosen One’s second term, it might be useful to explode a few of the chronic myths that cling to the man more tightly than his shadow. Myths that have helped liberal intelligentsia justify its enthusiastic support for this lesser of two evils. Here are the myths as articulated by a young, imaginary, and starry-eyed Obama progressive, momentarily detached from the stampeding liberal herd, just long enough to have a conversation with a leftist on the political fringe… Continue reading »

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Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and the historical drama of the Civil War

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ARTS & FILM, KULTURKAMPF  Comments Off
Nov 132012
 

By Tom Mackaman, wsws.org

Directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner


Day-Lewis as Lincoln

Lincoln, which will be released in theaters nationally November 16, is a powerful cinematic treatment of the Lincoln administration’s struggle to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in 1865, the final year of the American Civil War.

The film centers on the period of the “lame duck” Congress in early 1865, the fourth year of the Civil War, after the electorate had handed Lincoln and the Republicans a crushing victory in the 1864 elections over the Democrats, who opposed emancipation. It follows the political struggle to pass the Thirteenth Amendment through the House of Representatives—it had been passed by the Senate the previous year—amidst deep war-weariness in the North and against the backdrop of a mounting sentiment in favor of a negotiated peace with the South within the Republican Party itself. Continue reading »

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BP HELPING AMERICA (AND THE WORLD)*

 ANTI-CORPORATISM, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CORPORATE CRIMINALITY, ENVIRONMENTAL STRUGGLES, FALSE ENVIRONMENTALISM, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, SAVING THE PLANET  1 Response »
Nov 132012
 


Bob Dudley, BP’s “American face,” quickly picked as CEO to placate some of the righteous anger elicited by the company’s wanton criminality.

Did the headline shock you? Did it offend your sensibilities? If it did, if it looked like an audacious oxymoronic statement, it speaks highly for your sense of decency and level of cultural and political literacy. If it didn’t and you just bumped into this out of curiosity, read on. It concerns you in more ways than you imagine. We’re talking here about mental pollution, pardner, of the worst possible type, concocted, and disseminated with cold-blooded premeditation (not to mention delivered worldwide with absolute impunity) by the greatest malefactors of our time. Of which BP is certainly one of the most egregious.  This firm alone could have wiped out one of the planet’s most crucial and marvelous ecosystems, along with all its creatures, and it may still do it. Its compulsive predation is far from over since the prostituted politicians of the world —starting with the Americans—are not about to do anything remotely resembling controlling such firms.  They are their servants. But you know all this—or maybe not. So let’s examine. Here’s the summary to BP’s latest effort at “wiping the slate clean” after the image disaster it rightfully received in 2010 during the crisis. Needless to say, the Gulf catastrophe has proved a godsend for the advertising gnomes, who have filled their already bloated filthy pockets with the dollars and pounds dished out by BP to cover its tracks and repel a possible public backlash. Continue reading »

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