The poisoner in chief, for an already repugnantly poisoned nation.
By Black Agenda report (BAR) editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Dateline: Wednesday, 03 October 2007

A famous old English song is titled, “The World Turned Upside Down.” Such appears to be the insane vantage point through which the Bush regime, and many ordinary citizens, view reality: in reverse. U.S. media and politicians behave as if they are already at war with Iran, a nation that has been brutalized over generations by Americans, but whose president spoke of world peace and an end to “dark plots” during his visit to this country. Deafened and blinded by arrogant, ignorant, unthinking hatred, Americans responded with venom in quantities toxic to all rational thought. The Poisoner-in-Chief, George Bush, has made great strides in turning much of the nation into a Cuckoo’s Nest. Read the rest of this entry »

“We have established a global presence and provide training and tactical solutions for the 21st century. Our clients include federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Transportation, local and state entities from around the country, multinational corporations and friendly nations from all over the globe.”

Blackwater corporate website

“I would like to have the largest, most professional private army in the world.”

Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater USA

“Blackwater . right now has contracts that [Gary Jackson] says are so secret that he is not able to tell one branch of the Feds that he’s working for a different branch of the Feds.. Much of the interview I had with them was couched in this — this almost cowboy-like secrecy. They were very proud of being on these top secret missions.”

Barry Yeoman, author of “Soldiers of Good Fortune,” on Democracy Now

Read the rest of this entry »

President Hugo Chávez interviewed by Marta Harnecker, Monthly Review, Sept. 2005

This article is excerpted from Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo Chávez Talks to Marta Harnecker published by Monthly Review Press. The book covers a wide range of topics, including Chávez’s political formation, the transformation currently taking place in Venezuela, and its place in the global context. In what follows, Chávez recounts the events of the failed coup d’etat of April 11, 2002.—Eds.

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Nader, a tireless crusader for an America that might one day live up to its promise.

Who Will Confront the Unprecedented and Unconstitutional Concentration of Executive Power?

BY RALPH NADER

The rogue regime of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney — so widely condemned for its unconstitutional, criminal Iraq war, its spying on Americans illegally, its repeated illegal torture practices, its arrests and imprisonment of thousands in this country without charges and its
pathological secrecy and corporate corruption — still has not felt the heat of the 800,000 practicing lawyers and their many bar organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

Milton Friedman, best known for his free-market fundamentalism, and accordingly eulogized when not downright canonized by establishment apologists, was a shameless enemy of the people. Blessed with the kind of obscenely long life that apparently befits all scoundrels (dead at 94; Reagan at 84; Ed Bernays, 104) this contemptible mystifier of social science and intellectual prostitute for the plutocracy lived long enough to preside over criminal applications of his fraudulent “economic science”, most notably in Chile, where his vulturish “Chicago Boys” created a model of capitalist “development” with the usual lopsided traits of a nation deeply divided in terms of wealth distribution and political power, with the poor, of course, bearing the brunt of Friedman’s “free society.”

BY STEVEN LENDMAN
Dateline: Thursday, October 04, 2007

AN ERA ENDED on November 16, 2006 when economist Milton Friedman died. A torrent of eulogies followed. The Wall Street Journal mourned his loss with the same tribute it credulously used when Ronald Reagan died saying “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” Economist and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called him a hero and “The Great Liberator” in a New York Times op-ed; the UK Financial Times called him “the last of the great economists;” Terence Corcoran, editor of Canada’s National Post, mourned the “free markets” loss of “their last lion;” and Business Week magazine noted the “Death of a Giant” and praised his doctrine that “the best thing government can do is supply the economy with the money it needs and stand aside.” Read the rest of this entry »

Aznar and Bush, two men who should answer before a new Nuremberg court for deliberate crimes against humanity, beginning with the launching of unprovoked wars. Bush, Cheney, and their criminal neocons are still at it, of course, now plotting some pretext to attack Iran.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

“Don’t wait up for me, darling.” Bush patting one of his European concubines in crime.
By Bill Van Auken | 29 September 2007
A solidarity post with World Socialist Web Site
WSWS : News & Analysis : North America

THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE FEBRUARY 2003 discussions between US President George W. Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar published Wednesday by Spain’s largest daily, El Pais, provides fresh documentary confirmation of what is already a widely known historical fact. That is: the Bush administration was determined to wage a war of aggression to conquer Iraq and was not about to allow international law or compromise settlements to interfere with its long-planned invasion. Read the rest of this entry »

BHL, a man of strong opinions and a very high opinion of himself.

BY BERNARD HENRI-LEVY

[from the February 27, 2006 issue of The Nation]
REPUBLISHED AS A PUBLIC SERVICE

Editorial Caveat: Who is this diagnostician for the American Left?: In French and US establishment journals, Bernard-Henri Levy, or BHL, as he is commonly known, is one of the best-acclaimed “philosophes” and authors in France today. But when it comes to Henri-Levy, surely probably one of the great “poseurs” and leftist apostates on the world stage, such accolades are to be taken with a huge lump of salt. Indeed, a new biography by French journalists Jade Lindgaard and Xavier de la Porte is the first in a series of seven acerbic critiques of BHL to be released in the coming years and marks an unprecedented attack on the high-profile academic. Read the rest of this entry »

Few contemporary American politicians incarnate the false promise of liberalism as well as Democrat Hillary Clinton (along with husband Bill, the master opportunist “triangulator.”) If Hillary were to gain the White House, the Clintons would constitute another dynasty in presidential politics, and although rabidly denounced by the insane and hypocritical US rightwing punditocracy as wild leftists, in international terms they barely merit the label of mild “centrists.”

BY SUSAN ROSENTHAL
Dateline: September 17, 2007 CROSSPOST AT AUTHOR’S BLOGSITE: SUSAN’S BLOG

Part I (September 17) discussed the deepening conflict between the rulers and the ruled and the disagreements within the elite on how to address the nation’s problems. Part II (below) compares liberal efforts to preserve the system with socialist efforts to replace it. Read the rest of this entry »

Are Warren Buffet and his ilk— “enlightened” capitalists or merely shrewd self-serving plutocrats, and does it really make a difference?

BY SUSAN ROSENTHAL
Dateline: September 17, 2007 CROSSPOST AT AUTHOR’S BLOGSITE: SUSAN’S BLOG

AMERICA IS DEEPLY DIVIDED. For one thing, most Americans want an end to the war against Iraq and some form of universal health care, while the ruling class is committed to the war and to sacrificing social services to pay for it. Read the rest of this entry »