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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

“For certain members of our armed forces, there was a message delivered to them somehow, that somehow their Iraqi prisoners were subhuman.”

By Steven Jonas

10/7/07

Recently, a fascinating photo album was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. It was found by a U.S. counterintelligence officer in an abandoned apartment in Frankfurt, Germany after the end of World War II in 1945. (This meant that whoever assembled the book took it with them as they fled the camp before it was liberated by the Red Army in February 1945.) He kept it hidden away all of these years. It was sent to the Museum in December 2006. It is essentially a scrap book of photos of SS male and female officers and ranks at play outside Auschwitz in 1944. (Here is a short slide show with narrative.)

The photos show these people having picnic lunches, engaging in choral singing, playing with their dogs, gathering for smiling group photos, and smoking cigarettes (even though at Hitler’s behest, the Nazis had instituted the world’s first comprehensive anti-smoking campaign in Germany in the 1930s. And there you thought that all German armed forces members always followed orders.) They even decorated Christmas trees (after all, the slogan “Gott mit Uns” was on their belt buckles). And all this time, thousands of Jews and other nationalities were being gassed and burned at the camp every day. Talk about the banality of evil.

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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 Jean-Louis Turcot and Emily Spence

10/7/07

One of the authors of this piece once read that, based on size and weight, ants proportionally consume more than humans. And the current number of ants present in the world, according to E. O. Wilson’s judgment, is between ten to the sixteenth and ten to the seventeenth (roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000) in totality [1].

These facts raise a question: Should we reduce their population since there are so many of them and they use up so much?

To further consider this question, let’s examine what the ants do for a living. They work in a colony and perform specific tasks, the most important of which is to obtain nourishment since nothing else is possible unless they can eat and drink as a precondition of survival. Therefore, they consume, rest at night and go out the next day to forage for more provisions.

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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

“The flabby underside of American liberalism, and why the Corporados needn’t worry about a thing…”

By Patrice Greanville

10/6/07

As Americans we are so conditioned to avoid pain and inconvenience, so pansified by the endless mendacious ministrations of the system, and so unthinkingly devoted first to matters of home and the pacification of the insatiable “me, me, me” instead of principle (whose very “abstract” quality is clearly sheer pain to most of our fellow citizens), that even something as basic and risk-free as an article on progressive politics has to be formatted and spoon-fed in a way suitable for advanced hedonists, or chances are it won’t be read. Not even by people who define themselves as activists.

The acceptance of this realization —of which I have been in denial for years if not decades—came after talking to a dear friend whose noble and empathetic character is beyond doubt, and whose political leanings are impeccably on the left…and yet, not even this excellent human being could escape being an unplugged American. Her suggestion, if she was to read Cyrano’s materials [or any publication, blog or text that requires a bit of investment and true dedication to the subject], was to make them more “like People Magazine.” “Make the type larger. Make the articles shorter, so anyone can read them.” Well-meaning, she was also apparently oblivious to the oxymoronic implication of that very sentence. In other words, write like the system if you want an audience. Produce soundbites. Otherwise, don’t count EVEN on me to read the stuff, as my attention will drift elsewhere.

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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 Anwaar Hussain

10/6/07

Kālā Pānī, literally ‘Black water’ in Urdu/Hindi languages, a term for the deep sea and hence exile, was the name of a notorious cellular jail situated in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (India). The prison was known to house many notable Indian activists during the struggle for India’s independence. In March 1868, 238 prisoners tried to escape. By April they were all caught. One committed suicide and of the remainder, British Superintendent Walker ordered 87 to be hanged.

On the U.S. mainland, the Blackwater River of Florida is a 58-mile long river arising in southern Alabama and flowing through the Florida Panhandle to the Gulf of Mexico. The river enters Florida in Okaloosa County and flows through Santa Rosa County to Blackwater Bay, an arm of Pensacola Bay. The river passes through Blackwater River State Park.

There is yet another blackwater river in North Carolina that goes by the name of White Oak River. The White Oak River is located in North Carolina’s outer coastal plain province in Carteret, Jones, and Onslow Counties.

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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 Tom Nielsen

10/6/07

I had an “aha” moment the other day. I was reading an interview of a couple with an organic farm who use draft horses instead of tractors. They were asked what other alternative energy sources they use. Their initial response was that they’ve been waiting for that question. Their real answer was: gasoline. When I read that I realized how I have been looking at energy in terms of what is most abundant and most readily available for use instead of looking at natural energy like solar and wind as resources that are even more readily usable and available.

I hope I can offer you a similar “aha” moment by telling you about my journey into sustainability, and through the telling, help you see how to start becoming more sustainable yourself. This journey is not one I took alone. My partner, Phil, was with me for the ride, so it’s really our journey, and it began around 1997. Both of us have always been environmentally conscious, but in no way were we activists. We didn’t belong to Greenpeace or the Green Party. We aren’t hikers (despite the large forested park directly behind our apartment building), nor are we tree huggers, or vegetarians. In fact, at that time we were somewhat oblivious to environmental concerns. We shopped at the local super-giant grocery store: bought their well-traveled, mass- produced and minimally- flavored tomatoes and strawberries, and satisfied our various food cravings: Mine was Pop-Tarts, and Phil’s was chocolate-stripe cookies. We would leave, like everyone else, with everything double-bagged.

Even at home we were clueless about some of our major purchases. When we remodeled our kitchen we bought a new refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher. They were all Energy Star appliances, but we weren’t impressed by that. We bought them because their black and steel design matched the counter tops and cabinets we’d chosen (we also were more stereotypically gay, then too). So the point I’m making is that we didn’t always live sustainably. However, we did make an effort. Phil has always been a stickler for recycling, going so far as to keep a special 9 x 12 inch box handy for letter-size waste paper, which will be bound neatly with twine and set out with the rest of the recycling.

Click HERE to read the article in its entirety….

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

“Decades ago, in order to field test the economic theories that were formulated by the right wing think tanks at The Chicago School, Friedman and his disciples descended like locusts upon Latin America. The results were devastating: Democratically elected governments were systematically overthrown and brutal dictators friendly to US business interests were installed in their place—all of which were subsidized by US tax dollars with the complicity of the CIA.”

By Charles Sullivan

10/03/07

One can no longer understand US governmental policy on the basis of conventional language or traditional wisdom. Language itself and its long-established meanings were long ago twisted and distorted in order to deceive the people. Now war is peace and terror and occupation is liberation. In order to make sense of what is happening, it is important to understand everything within the context of a specific economic philosophy, and the distorted capitalist system that spawned it.

That ideology was crafted by a diminutive economist named Milton Friedman, at the University of Chicago some five decades ago. The holy trinity of Friedman’s version of capitalism—privatization of the public domain, corporate deregulation, and deep cuts in social spending—has resulted in enormous societal inequity and socio-economic classes. It has given us the haves and the have-nots, the haves and the have-mores.

Friedman and his disciples, collectively known as ‘The Chicago School’ do not believe in a minimum wage—much less a living wage, unions, worker rights, environmental protections, worker safety, or any other kind of restraint imposed upon corporations. In Friedman’s view, the market should rule and profitability should be the guiding principle, the end results always justifying the means.

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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

“…..maze of cubicles where artists, copywriters, and concept men work day and night to define the products of The Nation.”

By Adam Engel

10/2/07

Awakened midnight nobody home. Alone against the music of the Angry Young.
Kid outside screamed poems into a mike. Squat amp dragged behind him on a wagon. Surrounding friends clapped stomped cacophonous. Launched his dithyrambs against The City. Cannonades of sing-song bass.

Josh razed Jericho with song.

“Turn off the NOISE and tune in The VOICE of The Nation.”

That ad from somewhere I remember. Subway maybe. Turned on the stereo. Fight noise with noise. Lonely like I’ve never. Unbearable rip. Inside. Alone me in the middle of the night.

Tried to reach The VOICE myself. Dialed, the line was jammed. WSOS after midnight. The VOICE beseeched by the Sleepless of The Nation.

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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

“George W. Bush — the reigning mascot of this fantasyland of infantile omnipotence and instant gratification”

Addressing the origins of the “who’s is your daddy” nation

By Phil Rockstroh

“We must become the change we want to see.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“In any case, I hate all Iranians.” –Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary to Defense Secretary, Robert Gates

How many times do we, the people of the US, have to go around on this queasy-making merry-go-round of propaganda and militarism before we shout — enough! — then shutdown the whole cut-rate carnival and run the scheming carnies who operate it out of town? It is imperative the nation’s citizens begin to apprehend the patterns present in this ceaseless cycle of official deceit and collective pathology. This republic, or any other, cannot survive, inhabited by a populace with such a slow learning curve.

Over the last three decades, the authoritarian right has risen to create the nation they have been longing for since their humbling by the Watergate scandal. After being subdued and humiliated by the mechanisms of a free republic, the right has turned the tables — and subdued and humiliated the republic. If the trend continues, all but unchallenged and unabated, we might as well replace the torch held aloft by Lady Liberty with a taser.

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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

Read this or George W. Bush will be president the rest of your life!

October 1, 2007

by William Blum

www.killinghope.org

If not now, when? If not here, where? If not you, who?

I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I’d be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think “Casablanca”. And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened — the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland … one could have devoted one’s life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?

Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I’m actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a “failed state”; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire’s god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it’s not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I’m constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity — those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body — and a hundred minions.

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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 Vi Ransel

10/1/07

How many pounds of plastic are you dragging around in your wallet? How heavy is the debt monkey you’re carrying on your back? And why, pray tell, are you doing this?

“Credit.” My Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary lists the following synonyms: belief, faith, trust, confidence, favor, influence, name, character, reputation and honor. In fact, belief, faith, confidence and trust are all included in the number one definition of “credit”. Number two? Credible or trustworthy. Do you feel confident and influential when you open your credit card bills? Do you consider the companies sending the bills to be trustworthy and honorable? How does it affect your reputation when they call you at work? Just what is this “credit” you have so much faith in?

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