Jun 192013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

From the archives: Articles you should have read the first time around but missed. 

popeisNotGayThe Pope Is Not Gay!
by Angelo Quattrocchi, Translated by Romy Clark Giuliani
Reviewed by George De Stefano | Released: October 4, 2010 Publisher: Verso (192 pages) 

On May 13, 2010, during the annual Mass at Fatima’s sanctuary in Portugal, Pope Benedict XVI delivered yet another of his orations on the evils of homosexuality, and the impermissibility of granting legal recognition to same-sex relationships. Gay marriage, he declared, is one of “the most insidious and dangerous challenges that today confront the common good.”

Did you like this? Share it:
Jun 132013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF
dems-Reid+Pelosi+Senate+Democratic+Leaders+Mark+0wlToMkbHiJl

Shameless enablers, one and all.

Here’s MSNBC’s Maddow, again, in an excellent piece on how Republican extremists continue their systematic assault on women’s rights in America. The piece itself is impeccable, but what’s missing is the larger context, the “backstory”: for example the fact that in far too many instances the GOP has prevailed because the Democrats have simply folded or collaborated with this abject party. But perhaps even more damnable, the ultimate treason, is the fact that in both 2006 and 2008, when Bush’s regime and the GOP had —deservedly—plummeted to their lowest popularity ratings, and the Dems literally had a mandate to clean up house, it was Obama and the traitorous Dems who extended a hand to revive the ghoul, and the rest is history.  With the monster on the canvas, they should have driven a stake through its heart, but no, (upper) class imperatives dictated their moves.  Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
Jun 092013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

billMaher

••••

Bill Maher is usually all over the place with his political barbs, and it’s frustrating to watch him say something correct with one breath and cancel the good that it did with the next. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
Jun 062013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

By William Blum 

What our presidents tell our young people

George-W-Bush_2234660b

Bush: ignorant just about everything, but chiefly about hardships. But good at badmouthing Cuba.

In this season of college graduations, let us pause to remember the stirring words of America’s beloved scholar, George W. Bush, speaking in Florida in 2007 at the commencement exercises of Miami Dade College: “In Havana and other Cuban cities, there are people just like you who are attending school, and dreaming of a better life. Unfortunately those dreams are stifled by a cruel dictatorship that denies all freedom in the name of a dark and discredited ideology.” 1 Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
Jun 062013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

police-riotControl

NEW YORK — The NY State Senate has passed a bill (S.2402) that would make it a felony, punishable by up to 4 years in prison, to harass or annoy a police officer while on duty.  Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
Jun 032013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

by Stephen Lendman

Protesters improvise shields against police attacks.

Protesters improvise shields against police attacks.

In 2001, Recep Tayyip Erdogan established the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In November 2002, it won nearly two-thirds of parliamentary seats. It did so with 35% of the vote. Earlier dominant parties were rebuffed. Hard times aroused public anger. Voters rejected corrupt political rule. At the time, Istanbul newspaper Sabah called AKP’s triumph a “revolution by impoverished Anatolia against the old political guard.” Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
May 262013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

PREFATORY NOTE—Hemispheric issues

Mexico: «So far from God, So Close to the United States»
Epigram credited to Porfirio Díaz, Mexican dictator (1830-1915).

Mexican-Guerrillas1

As is the case in many parts of the world where poverty is widespread and institutionalized, a terrible status quo enforced by the government’s police and armed forces, representing the national and international bourgeoisie (the capitalist class), and normally assisted and bolstered in its repressive savagery by the United States, eventually sparks rebellions. These “insurgent” movements, sometimes led by socialists or communists and just as often simply by people driven to the limit of their endurance, are routinely pushed back by  ”counterinsurgency” campaigns that often qualify as genocidal.  The main object of such campaigns is to keep a profoundly unjust order going at any cost.  It’s a damn shame but many of our highly trained special forces are engaged in this criminal task around the globe. Such men apparently never figured out what fighting for “the American Way” means in the global context. Equally bad, aside from these “in country” instructors and fighters, we also train foreign murderers and torturers in our own military establishments, to date the most notorious being the  School of the Americas. (1) Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
May 242013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF
From Tbilisi to Worchester
by CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI
(With report & VIDEO by PressTV, see addendum below)
georgia-antiGay

It was humanity at its best.  Showing compassion for the quick and the dead.  The quick made news in Tbilisi, Georgia.  The dead made news in Worcester, Massachusetts. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
May 242013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF
Despite Annulment, Genocide Trial a Breakthrough for Justice and Truth
by LUZ MENDEZ
Rios-Mont: Like Pinochet, very likely to die comfortably in his own bed, surrounded by sycophants.

Mass murderer Rios-Mont: Like Pinochet, and other rightwingers, very likely to die comfortably in his own bed, surrounded by sycophants.

The sentence of 80 years in prison against former de facto president Efraín Ríos Montt for genocide and crimes against humanity committed during Guatemala’s armed conflict, emitted on May 10, 2013, was annulled by the Constitutional Court ten days later.

The court’s decision is a judicial aberration, since it not only exceeded its jurisdiction but also openly violated legal precepts and endorsed the underhanded mechanisms that uphold a system of impunity in Guatemala. It also demonstrates the lack of independence of the court to the powerful economic and political groups.

Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it:
May 222013
 
PrintFriendly and PDF

By Brendan FischerPRWatch | Report

(Photo: Elsewhere Films)

(Photo: Elsewhere Films)

“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 even further concerns about the Kochs potentially purchasing eight major daily newspapers.

The film from Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin documents how the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision helped pave the way for secret political spending by players like the Kochs, who contributed directly and indirectly to the election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in 2010 and came to his aid again when the battle broke out over his effort to limit collective bargaining. Continue reading »

Did you like this? Share it: