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

Classic Essays: Hail the Reds

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM, ANTIWAR, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CITIZEN TOOLS, CLASS STRUGGLE, CONSERVATIVES & REACTION, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, COUPS & CIVIL WAR, EXTREME WEALTH, FALSE DEMOCRACY, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE, IMPERIAL APOLOGISTS & COLLABOS, IMPERIALISM  No Responses »
May 162013
 
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What’s Left: Hail the Reds
By Stephen Gowans

"The Great Patriotic War" (WW2) was for the Soviets a defining moment. Out of nowhere, the USSR was able to outmanufacture and beat back the strongest war machine on earth.

“The Great Patriotic War” (WW2) was for the Soviets a defining moment. Against all odds, the USSR was able to outmanufacture Germany and beat back the strongest war machine on earth.

www3.sympatico.ca/sr.gowans/reds.html

Over the seven decades of its existence, and despite having to spend so much time preparing, fighting, and recovering from wars, the Soviet Union managed to create one of the great achievements of human history: a great industrial society that eliminated most of the inequalities of wealth, income, education and opportunity that plagued what preceded it, what came after it, and what competed with it; a society in which health care and education through university were free (and university students received living stipends); where rent, utilities and public transportation were subsidized, along with books, periodicals and cultural events; where inflation was eliminated, pensions were generous, and child care was subsidized. Continue reading »

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Guatemala’s Mayan Community Wins One For a Change

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-COMMUNISM, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM, ANTIWAR, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, BOUGHT POLITICIANS & PHONIES, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CONSERVATIVES & REACTION, CORPORATE CRIMINALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, IMPERIALISM, INDECENT SLIMEBALLS, LatinAm-CENTRAL AMERICA, PLUTOCRATIC POWER, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, SCUMWATCH, THE PENTAGON-MEDIA COMPLEX, US Foreign Policy, WAR CRIMES & CRIMINALS  1 Response »
May 162013
 
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Efrain Rios Montt Sent to Jail

Reagan-Mont comp.preview

by John Grant 

I saw the masked men
throwing truth into a well.
When I began to weep for it
I found it everywhere.
- Claudia Lars (El Salvador)

Those of us who have struggled for peace and justice over the past decades don’t have much to celebrate these days. But the news from Guatemala that a female judge — Yasmin Barrios — was able to successfully manage a trial in that benighted nation and convict former President Efrain Rios Montt of genocide is something to rejoice about. It suggests it’s no longer business as usual in Latin America — especially vis-à-vis the United States. Continue reading »

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BOOKS: What Academic Freedom?

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, AMERICAN STUDIES, BIG BROTHER, BOOK NOTES, BOURGEOIS VALUES, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, FALSE DEMOCRACY, GREAT HYPOCRISY, HISTORY, JUDICIAL, POLICE & REPRESSION  1 Response »
May 162013
 
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by David Rosen, THE BROOKLYN RAIL

Marjorie Heins
Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom and the Anti-Communist Purge
(New York University Press, 2013)

Today, we take the concept of “academic freedom” for granted. In February 2013, city officials and Zionist groups sought to prevent a talk at Brooklyn College about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (B.D.S.) movement against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

Mayor Bloomberg denounced efforts to prevent the talk in no uncertain terms: “If you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea,” Bloomberg said at a press conference. In the face of the mayor’s rant, the college’s president, Karen L. Gould, held firm and the talk took place. Continue reading »

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Spain’s Indignados Movement at the Crossroads

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, BOUGHT POLITICIANS & PHONIES, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CLASS STRUGGLE, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, CULTURE & CRITICISM, EU.Spain, TACTICS & STRATEGIES  No Responses »
May 162013
 
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Two Years Old, Time to Grow Up
spain-indignados_n-365xXx80-1

by TOM GILL

One of the great disappointments with – and indeed key weakness of – the indignados movement in Spain, which this May 15 celebrates its second birthday, has been its failure to pursue a strategy that turns power in the streets into the real power needed to change the world. Continue reading »

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Capitalism and the crisis facing young people

 ABOMINATIONS, ACTIVISTS & HEROES, BANKING & FINANCE, BOUGHT POLITICIANS & PHONIES, CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM, CORPORATE CRIMES, CORPORATE CRIMINALITY, CORPORATE MENTALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, INEQUALITY  No Responses »
May 132013
 
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By Andre Damon

FRANCE MAY DAY DEMONSTRATION

The victims are the same, the causes are the same, and the results are the same: it’s a systemic problem caused by advanced capitalism.

Perhaps more than any other section of society, young people around the world have been made to bear the brunt of the capitalist crisis. In the five years since the 2008 crash, youth unemployment has reached Depression-era levels, young workers’ wages have plummeted, and education opportunities have collapsed. Continue reading »

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Don’t Let Business Lobbyists Kill the Post Office

 ACTIVISTS & HEROES, AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM, GOVERNMENT CRIMES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, IDIOTIZED PUBLICS, MEDIA SCUM, PLUTOCRATIC POWER, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA  2 Responses »
May 102013
 
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From our archives—Articles you should have read when they came out but missed.—

By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
readersupportednews.org | with select comments

Postal officials say they must close about 3,700 underused post offices (there are 32,000 nationally) while offering alternative services through local businesses. They also want to consolidate hundreds of regional processing centers and eliminate Saturday mail deliveries.

Taibbi

Taibbi

n aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was warning me about this last week. There are organic reasons for all of this: The U.S. Postal Service is staring down the same barrel trained at our magazine and newspaper businesses, i.e. its revenue model is being wiped out by the internet. Continue reading »

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