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 Radical Center and Armed Revolution

 ABOMINATIONS, AMERICAN STUDIES, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, BOUGHT POLITICIANS & PHONIES, BOURGEOIS VALUES, CLASS COLLABORATION, CORPORATE MENTALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, CORPORATE TELEVISION, FEMINISM, IDIOTIZED PUBLICS, KULTURKAMPF, LIBERAL BETRAYALS  No Responses »
May 112013
 
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A Challenge for the Left
by ROB URIE
The liberals —especially bourgeois feminists—are already salivating at the prospect of a Hillary presidency. That's the kind of "center" that constitutes the worst obstacle to making progress on the left.

The liberals —especially bourgeois feminists—are already salivating at the prospect of a Hillary presidency. That’s the kind of “center” that constitutes the worst obstacle to making progress on the left.

Following release of the results of a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University poll showing 29% of registered voters in the U.S. believe armed revolution to ‘protect liberties’ may be necessary the self-appointed political ‘center’ went into full conniption in defense of the established order. Visions of shotgun wielding Tea Partiers were trotted out, racists no doubt, storming the Capitol to roll back the radical progress President Barack Obama and a blameless Congress have made to save ‘our fledgling democracy’ from the predations of empire, the corrupting influence of money in politics, the growing and conspicuous divide between haves and have-nots, the murderous militarism of the war industry and the oppressive machinations of a militarized police. Accurate descriptions of official policies to which the citizenry might legitimately object were prominent in their absence. Continue reading »

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Liberalism’s Death Bell Tolls, Part 2: How the Left Became Irrelevant

 AMERICAN STUDIES, GREAT HYPOCRISY, IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE, IMPERIALISM, KULTURKAMPF, LIBERAL BETRAYALS  Comments Off
Mar 092013
 
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By Richard Gale

Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation's publisher, an avatar of compromised left liberalism.—Eds

Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation’s publisher, an avatar of compromised left liberalism.—Eds

Part 2 of a series of 3. How did the liberal left get it so wrong? When did it become so powerless in facing the avalanche of domestic and global crises ahead? At what point did it lose its moral bearing and compromise on its fundamental principles that at one time were truly progressive and democratic?

Editor’s Note: The author(s) are correct in castigating the liberal left. Left liberals (“the best of liberalism”) lost their moorings long ago because they never had a trustworthy compass, always being much more liberal than left, just as “capitalist democracy” is always far more capitalist than democratic.  The liberals’ fear and aversion of class analysis as a method to understand politics and history, their eager participation in the anti-communist crusade and similarly sordid enterprises, inevitably yields this kind of result. And it’s no use to put on a hairshirt at this point, the damage is done. —P. Greanville

:::::::: Continue reading »

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What’s God Got to Do With It?

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CULTURE & CRITICISM, KULTURKAMPF, RELIGIOSITY & SUPERSTITION  Comments Off
Mar 052013
 
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When the Spirit of Holy War Takes Over
by ANDREW LEVINE

Not long ago, it was widely assumed that faith in God is no longer an authentic motivator in modern politics, and that sectarian strife, despite its religious veneer, has more to do with class struggle or anti-imperialist resistance — or “subversion,” as Cold Warriors used to say — than religious conviction. Continue reading »

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The Fascinating Story of the Original Sexual Revolution

 BETTER HUMANITY, CULTURE & CRITICISM, FEMINISM, GREAT HYPOCRISY, HEALTH & MEDICINE, HISTORY, KULTURKAMPF, RELIGIOSITY & SUPERSTITION, SOCIAL CHANGE, WOMEN  Comments Off
Mar 012013
 
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Salon [1] / By Laura Miller [2]
historyofsex

Academic history — the kind backed up by piles of primary-source research and hedged with cautionary remarks — is often useful, but rarely fascinating. Most of it, however, isn’t about a subject as perennially engaging as Faramerz Dabhoiwala’s. The Oxford historian’s new book, “The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution,” [3] describes how sex became modern in 18th-century England, a transformation that explains “the profound chasm between our present attitudes to sex and those that prevailed for most of western history.” We tend to think of sex as something primal and unchanging, but as Dabhoiwala tells it, nothing could be further from the truth. Continue reading »

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“Going Clear”: Scientology Exposed

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ARTS & FILM, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CORPORATE MENTALITY, CULTURE & CRITICISM, KULTURKAMPF, RELIGIOSITY & SUPERSTITION  1 Response »
Mar 012013
 
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Salon [1] / By Laura Miller [2]

Tom Cruise: one of the most prominent "public faces" and salesmen for Scientology.

Tom Cruise: one of the most prominent “public faces” and salesmen for Scientology.

 

Several years ago, for a series of Salon articles about Scientology, I was asked to review the founding text of the church, “Dianetics” [3] by L.Ron Hubbard, first published in 1950. The book seemed so clearly the work of a man suffering from particular and pronounced mental health issues that I became, for the first time, curious about its author. Like most self-help books, “Dianetics” frequently invokes case histories or hypothetical scenarios, but unlike most self-help books, Hubbard’s stories featured an alarming amount of violence, specifically domestic violence. Continue reading »

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‘Argo’ and ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Showcase the Banal Militarism of Hollywood

 AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTIWAR, ARTS & FILM, BATTLE OF COMMUNICATIONS, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, INDECENT SLIMEBALLS, KULTURKAMPF, ROTTEN CULTURE, SCUMWATCH, THE PENTAGON-MEDIA COMPLEX  2 Responses »
Feb 282013
 
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Foreign Policy in Focus / By Fouad Pervez  – ALTERNET

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

February 27, 2013

The latest Academy Awards ceremony, which crowned the  well-intentioned but fatally flawed Argo as the year’s best film, merely formalized the nearly universal acclaim that director Ben Affleck has received for his gripping CIA drama set in Iran. It also said a lot about what’s wrong with Hollywood today. Continue reading »

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