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By Charles Sullivan

9/26/07

It is evident that the US, or Israel, is going to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran in the near future, just as it did against Iraq and countless other defenseless nations within recent memory. As a result, untold numbers of innocent people will die and huge sums of money will change hands. Both the U.S. and Israel will consolidate their power in the Middle East and injustice and death will follow in their wake.

Bush’s co-conspirators in Congress are standing down, leaving little doubt as to whom they serve. As always, the mainstream media is preparing the way by serving as an organ of the Military-industrial complex by beating the drums of war and perpetuating lies.

Outside of a small number of citizens, few people seem capable of plumbing the depths of our conundrum. Under the umbrella of capitalism, business is the business of America, and death, inequity, and misery are its chief byproducts. Thus the rich are getting richer and the wealth generated by the producers is being concentrated into fewer hands than ever before.

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BY GARY CORSERI

9/23/07

They gave us democracy,
But took our freedom.
We had the right to vote,
But it didn’t matter.
We had the right to refuse to sing
“The Star-Spangled Banner”—
But not if we valued our lives.

We could chant, “Not in my name,”
But they took our names away.
We could work hard,
But they taxed us into the ground.
We could march against War,
But they sent us to War
And taught our children to kill
Someone else’s children.

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Is greed good? Gordon Gekko and Ragnar Redbeard III think so!

[To highlight the deep malevolence of our rotten-to-the-core system, we bring you this repulsive apologia for capitalism. Since many have deluded themselves with the far-fetched notion that decency and humanity can coexist with the inherent depravity of profits and property over people, we are providing you with a celebration of capitalism, the way it was meant to be written!]

December 6, 2006

by Ragnar Redbeard III

“What kind of a society isn’t structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that system.”

—Milton Friedman

What kind indeed? Certainly not a prodigious society such as ours. Thanks to Capitalism, the United States is replete with opulence, might, and benevolence.

Guided by the brilliant foresight of Hamilton, manacled by men like Keynes, Galbraith, and FDR, and ultimately granted a refreshing degree of freedom by the heroic intellectual efforts of Rand and Friedman, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” has wrought a citadel for those wishing to pursue healthy greed, self-interest, and enlightened oppression. While Capitalism in the United States is still afflicted with the diseases of a mixed economy, government regulation and socialistic tendencies, America’s socioeconomic system is far superior to any rival, past or present.

Yet despite having propelled the human family to the zenith of prosperity, technology, and freedom, American Capitalism has been, and remains, under constant siege. Vile Communists have waged multiple wars (hot and Cold) against us. Islamofascist terrorists struck at the very heart of our economic freedom when they felled the Twin Towers. Crazed Latino Leftist leaders espousing frightening notions of nationalization, protectionism, and wealth redistribution are springing up like noxious weeds in our backyard. And despite their diminished prevalence, domestic entitlement programs and organized labor continue to pose significant threats to the evolution, perpetuation, and proliferation of the American Way.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

[Reaganomics adherents are today’s neoconservatives with the “full force of the US military machine (serving their unfettered) corporate agenda” of greed writ large. Its holy policy trinity is: “elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending (if any at all).” But instead of lifting all boats as promised, it’s the mirror opposite. It creates a powerful ruling corporatist class partnered with corrupted political elites - “with hazy and ever-shifting lines between the two groups.”]

Review of Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”

by Stephen Lendman

9/20/07

Naomi Klein is an award-winning Canadian journalist, author, documentary filmmaker and activist. She writes a regular column for The Nation magazine and London Guardian that’s syndicated internationally by the New York Times Syndicate that gives people worldwide access to her work but not its own readers at home.

In 2004, she and her husband and co-producer Avi Lewis released their first feature documentary - “The Take.” It covered the explosion of activism in the wake of Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis. People responded with neighborhood assemblies, barter clubs, mass movements of the unemployed and workers taking over bankrupt companies and reopening them under their own management.

Klein is also the author of three books. Her first was “No Logo - Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies” (2000) that analyzes the destructive forces of globalization. Next came “Fences and Windows - Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate” (2002) covering the global revolt against corporate power.

Her newest book just out is “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” that explodes the myth of “free market” democracy. It shows how neoliberal Washington Consensus fundamentalism dominates the world with America its lead exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts, and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere. Wars are waged, social services cut, and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or bludgeoned to object. Klein describes a worldwide process of social and economic engineering she calls “disaster capitalism” with torture along for the ride to reinforce the message - no “New World Order” alternatives are tolerated.

“Free market” triumphalism is everywhere - from Canada to Brazil, China to Bulgaria, Russia to South Africa, Vietnam to Iraq. In all cases, the results are the same. People are sacrificed for profits and Margaret Thatcher’s dictum applies - “there is no alternative.”

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By John Hanks

9/17/07

After the filth murdered the Wellstones, I knew that we were under a Nazi regime and that soon we would all be dead. At that point I just assumed I was dead, like any experienced combat soldier. I put signs in my car windows that say “Bush ordered 911″ or “Republicans Return to Their Own Vomit”, etc. Since I live in Wyoming, I figured that I would be murdered in short order, but so far I’m fine, after 4 years of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. If you put good hateful signs in your windows, you outflank the crook media, and cell phones often do the rest.

The only way to counter demoralization, which is the stock and trade of the filth, is to cultivate a black and intelligent hatred. Anger is an exhausting weakness and just an expression of demoralization. But, hatred is an instinctual reaction to those who would like to kill you. Republicans are full of hatred because they know that liberals would like to revoke their license to steal. That is why they don’t have to think except in terms of slogans.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Jason Miller

8/27/07

“It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, the capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.”

–Malcolm X

Striving with the unwavering dedication of true believers and slaves to the grind, those of us who exist within the geographic, social, cultural, economic, and political boundaries of the United States are collectively destroying the Earth.

With dutiful efforts, heavily sedated consciences, and sweet obliviousness to the depth of our depravity, we toil away at our chosen or assigned tasks. After all, predatory plutocrats like “Mitt” Romney would be impotent without his minions—the hundreds of millions of wage slaves exercising their “right to work” (for as small a wage as they desire) while obediently manning the bulwarks of a system so putrid that were it possible to feed it to a pig, our porcine friend would wretch his guts out.

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free”

–Eugene Debs, American Socialist

By Paul A. Donovan

8/23/07

“The only thing most American know about socialism is they don’t like it. They have been led to believe that socialism is something to be either ridiculed as impractical, or feared as an instrument of the devil.”

–Leo Huberman

It is in fact difficult to shed light on what a socialist United States will look like, mostly because many think socialism, or other forms of publicly owned, and democratically controlled economies is an impossible goal to achieve in our country, mostly due to the hyper capitalist mentality of our nation, the strength of our ruling classes, and the overwhelmingly successful propaganda apparatus of the corporate system, which comprises the media, educational system, and many other venues, including the religious and political pulpit, and is reflected in the apathy, alarming confusion, and at times, indifference of our nation’s citizens, many of whom simply don’t know, don’t want to know, or don’t care where this country is headed (for a terrific insight into this puzzling and exasperating mindset I strongly recommend Deer Hunting with Jesus, by Joe Bageant, who also happens to be one of Cyrano’s senior contributing editors).

However, the capitalist systems own irrepressible dynamics and “make up”—which easily translate into a bill of indictment—are bringing about yet another wave of global repulsion and re-awakenings. In this framework, when I speak of this dynamic I am referring not so much to the more technical aspects of this phenomenon, but to its mass-perceived aspects, such as the following (in no particular order):

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By ADAM ENGEL

8/15/07

So then, another gaggle of reactionaries skilled in a certain brain Judo (crude street version practiced in rough-and-tumble Think Tanks of D.C.), mourn the passing of Yesterday’s sun. Unravel the nonce of dream: strands of dead hair tied in noose-knots. The Dead are dandruff tumbling, or rigor mortis oddities caught in the tar of Liberty’s mussed pompadour. String theory, etc.

Witnessed days before tumors pocked all flesh. Diaries kept by The Missing. LOSD (Losing Our Sons and Daughters), the agency that tracks and codifies gross theft of person-hood, believed, oh! — Dead, dead, regardless of when or if found and returned, hungry, living, The Missing are, were and will remain quite dead to friends, family, creditors (not to imply excuse of debt). LOSD opportunities: accept, adjust, return.

Witness to airplanes, all that fly me I’m Linda, fly me, I’m Gail. Beware physicians and their hypodermic –

“Needless overhead,” said the CFO, a CPA, to the CEO who related their calculations to the bored, board, boredom a Kharma tax Cosmically imposed upon obscene wealth. Blasé omnipotence of digital transactions: nine figures, ten figures, eleven (yawn), twelve. No cold steal like cash or coin. No gold jewels or pills.

The next Great Train Robber walking off with someone’s — dare I say whose? — wireless laptop and personal digital assistant (who’ll offer no resistance, unlike buxom Gal Fridays of corporate yore).

What’s with these Yankees of today all hard-bone-cold-and-snot-marrow?

All is not completely lost. You – assuming you are – must do what your “Mother” Nature’s been on your case about (”The case is all there is,” Wittgenstein or Clarence Darrow said) and “clean your damned room!”

Adieu.

Adam Engel is a contributing editor with Cyrano’s Journal Online and can be reached at

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

“Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney avoided Vietnam with his Mormon missionary work, and high draft lottery number. Last week, after delivering a speech in Bettendorf, Iowa, calling for a “surge of support” for our forces in Iraq, Romney was asked why none of his 5 sons had joined the military. “They are showing support for their nation,” said Romney, “by helping me get elected because they think I’d be a great president.” Romney’s net worth exceeds two hundred million dollars.”

By Rand Clifford

8/11/07

A CorpoMedia masterpiece has recently been published by Michael Barone, senior writer for U.S. News and World Report. The title: New global study points to hope. [1] The study in reference is the Pew Global Attitudes Project’s poll of 47 nations. The Pew Resource Center, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, likes to call itself a Washington Fact Tank. [2]

Could it be that Barone is satisfied with his ad-hominem attacks on Al Gore having minimized the threat of global warming, so in this article at least, Barone felt compelled to feed Americans highly-pure CorpoMedia pap? “Most striking” is how he described the fact that only 1 out of 4 Americans are positive about the direction of the nation. An ensuing flourish of CorpoMedia bait-and-switch seasoned with indirection and omission assigns blame to the low job ratings of W, and congress. Partisanship is trotted out—Democrats are spoiling the party. Then The People get spanked with: “But when one considers that America has not suffered another Sept. 11 and that is has enjoyed a surging and prosperous economy, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that citizens of this most blessed country are registering a verdict that is in tension with reality.”

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Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to

By Carolyn Baker

8/10/07

Originally published at Speaking Truth to Power

Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.

–Robert Louis Stevenson–

A few days ago a friend called me just after hearing Michael Panzner on the Thom Hartmann show on Air America. My friend wanted me to read Panzer’s book, Financial Armageddon and see what I thought. Apparently, Panzer’s radio interview remarks were filled with passion and a sense of urgency, and upon reading the book, I experienced the same intensity in the author’s writing which pleasantly surprised me. Here was a financial guru with 25 years’ experience in the stock, bond, and currency markets and a faculty member of the New York Institute of Finance, who unlike Ben Bernanke and the silver-lining pundits of the financial pages, was not telling us that everything is going to be fine or that things will “bounce back in 2010″.

Anyone familiar with my writings knows that I have never claimed to be a fiduciary wizard, but in recent years I have written more on topics related to economics than at any time in my life. I do not believe that all social issues can be resolved if only we change how money works in the United States or the world, but I am profoundly aware of the role of economic issues-perhaps more than militarism, healthcare, education, politics, or any other institution, in the dead-ahead demise of empire. I also notice that few in the left-liberal end of the political spectrum have a firm grasp on economic issues which I suspect comes from a fundamental polarization between activism and financial intelligence-a reality which motivated me a few years ago to write an article entitled “Activists And Accountants: Absolute Allies.”

Michael Panzner is definitely not from the left end of the political spectrum, which makes the contents of Financial Armageddon all the more fascinating and momentous. I came away from the book with both remarkable reinforcement of my position that the United States has entered economic collapse, but also perplexed regarding the myriad blind spots that the author seemed to have regarding the causes of the current economic meltdown. I am not aware of how Panzner may have altered his views since the publication of his book earlier this year, but at the time of writing, Panzner did not mention or was not aware of a number of glaring realities regarding the gluttonous greed-fest that has characterized the United States since the end of World War II. I will address those inconsistencies first, then highlight the places where I think Financial Armageddon is absolutely on-target.

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