Ben Cohen has published Enemy Wanted on AlterNet which talks about more government obfuscation, this time with a specific example involving the U.S. military. The Pentagon’s budget next year is expected to top $400 Billion. The money is being spent solely to fund defense contracting companies. All of the hardware provided can’t possibly help in the war on terrorism. Seriously, why does the U.S. need more submarines?

“Even Lawrence Korb, a top defense official under Ronald Reagan, says we’re... [More]”

The New York Newsday published a letter to the editor today in response to an article by Robert Jensen, published on May 29, 2002, called Journalism Should Never Yield to ‘Patriotism’ (reprinted here at Common Dreams). The letter is excerpted below:

“To be an American is the height of being a human being. This does not mean we are better than other people, it does not mean we have no humility. It means that we have led the way. Through our economic system, we have shown others how to live free... [More]”

The New York Newsday today had a headline on their front page which noted “Bush Expands Order To Topple Hussein”. On pages 2 and 3, the article Bush: Get Saddam… had more details of a planned U.S. coup attempt. Under that article was another, In Congress, Support for the President, which dispelled any notions that this coup attempt was just the unsanctioned idea of the President and his administration, bent on revenge.

So, here we have a very blatant example of the complicity of the U.S. media... [More]

The Register has published Dubya calls for US Gestapo, covering Bush’s speech late last week. He called for a new cabinet-level position to be created, effectively legitimizing the Office of Homeland Security. “The stated purpose here is to provide a second layer of insurance against the intelligence and communications failures affecting both the CIA and FBI, which Congress is now investigating.” But, the proposal calls for the CIA and FBI to create reports of information and hand it over to the... [More]

U.S. Is Icing Our Warming Report from the New York Newsday talks about a recent report issued by the U.S. federal government about its stance on global warming, the Climate Action Report 2002. In it, the U.S. government finally admits “what every other important institution in the world has long insisted: that global warming will wreak massive damage on every corner of the planet.”

However, the logic of the U.S. empire being what it is, this does not lead to a call for curtailing of activity... [More]

Democracy − Who is she when she’s at home? on ZNet by Arundhati Roy from April 28 is a long article about recent racist riots in India’s state of Gujarat between Hindus and Muslims. Ever since “Muslim ‘terrorists’ who burned alive 58 Hindu passengers on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra…”, though no claim to the terror has been laid or evidence shown, Muslims have been persecuted in the Gujarat.

“Officially the number of dead is 800. Independent reports put the figure at well over 2,000. More... [More]”

Just recently, I had the pleasure of hearing a discussion laced with mystification at the rest of the world’s displeasure with the wonderful United States. These opinions are espoused in an information vacuum lovingly prepared by U.S. media and a will to believe. I was able to offer that “they hate us for our freedoms”, which was swallowed whole and agreed with enthusiastically. There is no individual effort to determine whether there may be reason behind the mystifying dissatisfaction with the... [More]

The Washington Post published Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat recently, covering an “…analysis [of] the majority of trials conducted by drug companies in recent decades…”. It seems positive thinking, or believing that you’re taking a pill to make you feel better, is more likely to cure your depression than actually taking an anti-depressant, many of which have terrible side-effects.

“… new research suggests that the placebo may play an extraordinary role in the treatment of... [More]”

ZNet published Chomsky’s Dýyarbikar Speech on March 25th. He discusses several interesting topics, mostly giving a fascinating history and framework on which to hang U.S. and British behavior in the last century (and into this one). In all cases, he goes out of his way to mention that the U.S. is simply behaving like any other empire would and the repression and conquering outside its borders should be lamented, but not come as a surprise.

The history runs from British terrorism in the... [More]

Wil Wheaton published Now I’m Pissed, a raw response from a Californian to Enron. It seems Enron was responsible for the collapse of California’s energy market. And deliberately so. They exploited every loophole they could find, with cute-sounding strategies like “Death Star” and “Get Shorty”. Recent memos found in Enron documents, are a “smoking gun”. The SFGate’s article Enron memo describes how traders drove up state’s power prices says:

“Referring to a strategy called “Death Star” by Enron... [More]”

Noam Chomsky has been interviewed several times over the last 2 months with regard to the unfolding situation in Israel. The situation has garnered a lot of attention in both the U.S. and World press, but anyone with a good amount of familiarity with the situation there would fail to see any new developments. The level of violence has escalated, but not to previously unseen levels, and certainly there have been no ideological shifts on the part of any of the major players.

In an interview, Noam... [More]

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is visiting Cuba over the next five days and has been heartily welcomed by Cuban President Fidel Castro. The Newsday reports in Like Old Friends… that his visit is ostensibly to talk privately about Cuba’s human-rights record, but is also being interpreted in the usual rhetoric from all sides of the political spectrum. Of particular interest to many is the lifting of the almost 50 year old economic U.S.-led Western embargo of Cuba.

Recent statements by the... [More]

I was referred by Plastic from Time To Pay The Piper to this amusing parable by William F. Buckley on the National Review called A Parable: The Tenth Man. In it, he poses the current tax situation and relative tax burdens of various members of society as a group of ten men eating dinner. Each man represents a tenth of society. It’s supposed to educate you about last year’s tax cut. I’ll reproduce it here for you:

“Every night, ten men met at a restaurant for dinner. At the end of the meal, the... [More]”

With the President still enjoying huge ratings in most polls, others are feeling much more confident in taking the “with us, or against us” message to new fronts. Former Secretary of Education, William Bennet, has founded Americans for Victory over Terrorism. The aim of the organization is to “take to task those groups and individuals who fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the war we are facing”, or basically, to educate America’s citizens about their wrong-headed liberal views. It’s principles... [More]

Iraq is due to be rolled on next. It’s been almost ten years since all-out war there. Bombings are still going on there now (“…in 1999/2000, according to the Pentagon, the US flew 24,000 “combat missions” over Iraq”). What have the sanctions been like there? John Pilger published this article on March 21st, 2002 about the state of Iraq today, after over a decade of sanctions. He discusses the supreme irony of the U.S. and Britain, two powers with plenty of blood on their hands, imposing... [More]

Wired Magazine’s April issue has Peace Is War which covers in detail the degree to which the U.S. military stranglehold exists.The author, Bruce Sterling, attributes much of the power to not just an immense arsenal, but also to multifarious space-based military capabilities. In fact, he’s christened the Persian Gulf War as Space War I and the Yugoslavian carpet-bombing as the Second Space War. Space War III is in its final stages right now and was exacted upon Afghanistan.

Secretary of Defense... [More]

Next stop for the War on Terror Express? Iraq. Why? Ostensibly because Iraq refuses to allow inspectors into the country to look into the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Forget the incredible irony of the double-standard at work here. Forget that Iraq has been under crippling sanctions for over a decade. Let’s just take for granted that fewer weapons of mass destruction in this world is good.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the agenda of the U.S. The previous unalloyed statement needs a... [More]

The Washington Post reports on the problems related to retracting textbook lessons long in circulation in Afghanistan.

While the stated policy (ie. the constitution) is to keep religion and education separated, this is of course not applied to propoganda material. Textbooks which taught counting with tanks and bullets and were filled with Islamic tenets extolling the glory of holy war against the Soviet invaders, were specially made in the US at the University of Omaha. While the aid package... [More]

The LA Times recently leaked a document called the “Nuclear Posture Review” (excerpts, briefing). In it, contingencies are discussed about using nuclear weapons in the current campaign, under which conditions they’d be used and against whom and which types are needed and must be developed/tested further.

I suppose the obvious questions is why can’t the U.S. just say they wouldn’t use nuclear weapons? I mean, I thought they were the good guys. I understand about carrying a big stick, but when... [More]

Well, let’s recap. Almost a year ago, it was reported that Ashcroft Holds Prayer Meetings at White House. These are Pentacostal prayer meetings, are not enforced on staff, and in no way blur the separation of church and state. Ahem.

More recently, John Ashcroft’s Perilous Nipples by Mark Morford of the SF Gate explains that Ashcroft is afraid of nudity:

“…order[ed] his very own Justice Department to spend $8,000 to purchase heavy blue drapes to cover the two large, noble, partially naked... [More]”

The New York Newsday reported a Stunning Turn of Events… recently. In a somewhat transparent attempt to provide some continuity from the attack on Afghanistan to a continued war in Somalia, the Pentagon announced recently that a GPS from a soldier killed in Somalia (and whose name Black Hawk Down has entered into the public consciousness) has been found in Afghanistan. Whereas this should be more than is needed to satisfy an unquestioning public, an Army reporter noted immediately that the... [More]

The New York Newsday is reporting that Vatican Reaffirms Anti-homosexual Stand. In a stunning turnaround of events, the church has admitted that it has deep-rooted problems and has accepted all blame for them, vowing to do better and fix their problems. Just kidding.

“Noting that most reported cases of sex abuse have involved priests and boys, Catholic officials in Rome have reaffirmed their stand against homosexuality, saying gays should not become priests.”

I knew it was the gays. Damn it,... [More]

By this point, you should have heard of the new hit spin-off from the Department of Defense (formerly called the War Department) called the Office of Strategic Influence. As reported in the New York Times in Pentagon Readies Efforts to Sway Sentiment Abroad, this office would be in charge of:

<q> … developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations as part of a new effort to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and... [More]

America Sells Itself Out for Stability on the New York Newsday is a fantastic piece by Ralph Peters, “a retired Army officer and the author of two books on strategy”. He very succintly and calmly points out that quite a lot of the U.S. problems in the world today stem directly from a foreign policy that supports ideals exactly opposite to those the U.S. espouses.

While the premise is not new, his approach is much more factual and far less hyperbolic. He arrives at the modern-day reality that the... [More]

John Pilger published an article on March 7, 2002 in the New Statesman about President Chavez of Venezuela. It seems that Venezuela is having trouble learning the lessons of its neighbors in the 20th Century. The story is the same as that told many times before. Democratically-elected left-leaning government nationalizes private oil industry and implements land reforms (which involves giving unused lands away to those that might make use of it) in order to address crippling poverty in over 80%... [More]

Sometimes it’s so hard to keep track of U.S. foreign policy. Especially when trying to figure out where tax money is being spent on making war. There are so many levels of funding available:

1. Foreign aid to oppresive regimes to “stabilize” the local government (think Saudi Arabia)
2. Overt military aid in the form of actual hardware (think Israel)
3. U.S. military “advisors” in the field (think CIA and who knows where they all are)
4. U.S. Troop deployment (bases in over 100 countries, but recently,... [More]

Examples abound of things that are happening (or have happened, fait accompli) that are morally and ethically offensive, but that’s that and move right along. Nat Hentoff wrote Big John Wants Your Reading List for the Village Voice revealing that Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act (oh yeah, it passed, remember?) “…would grant FBI agents across the country breathtaking authority to obtain an order from the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court . . . requiring any person or business... [More]”

I remember that immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center, it was generally agreed upon in the mainstream press that irony was dead. I also remember thinking that that was ridiculous. Irony is alive and well. Recent events have borne that out, with increasingly dangerous and heavily ironic things happening all of the time.

Now, in recent days, I’ve seen something that leads me to think that the “irony is dead” mantra was simply a case of mistaken identity. It’s irony’s close... [More]

The New York Newsday published Democrats Raise Questions On War a little while ago. It seems that some have in Congress (especially that troublemaker Daschle) have had the temerity to ask about long-term goals of the administration. This drew the baleful eye of the guardians of a patriotic America in which we all act as one and do not ask questions because it interrupted their slavering, gleeful capering over their new shiny hoards of weapons and money.

It seems the relatively straightforward... [More]

The latest Adbusters issue has Intimidation discussing the Orwellian clampdown that is taking shape in Western society today.

“The supposedly immovable object called citizens’ rights met an irresistible force called “preventative justice.” And it got crushed. … The program isn’t to break bones, but to set limits − what we can say, endorse, speak up against”

More and more we hear the story of the man who was detained for hours or days because he made another person “nervous”. That nervous... [More]