We have said it before: If hot air could be used as a viable energy source, Tom Friedman alone could solve the world crisis. The billionaire pundit’s arrogance often matches his ignorance—and is there any point in asking why the NYTimes poo-bahs keep him under contract?
By Steve Jonas / Dateline: Tue, 10/16/2007 -
Tom Friedman has been wrong before about the major issues of our time. He supported “globalization” and apparently still does, even though this is finally being revealed to be not at all about “free trade” (e.g., U.S. sugar), as some observers have known for quite some time. Rather it is about the free export of capital to places where it can make a lot more profit for its owners than it could in the U.S. Tom Friedman originally supported the War on Iraq, even though he wasn’t sure about WMD. And now Tom Friedman is wrong on Gore (for the most part) and on Bush. Continue reading ‘Dr. J.’s Commentary: Tom Friedman: Wrong. Again.’
By character and class consciousness Pelosi is simply reacting to events as the wealthy bourgeoise she is. If revolution and true defiance to the status quo will come they won’t come from creatures ensconced in privilege.
TAKE ONE: A VIEW FROM THE LEFT
House Speaker Pelosi lashes out at antiwar protesters
By Patrick Martin \ Dateline: 15 October 2007
Crosspost with the World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org, which originated the article.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in Washington, normally maintains a public display of sympathy towards the mass opposition to the war in Iraq—an opposition which propelled the Democrats into control of the House and Senate in the congressional elections last November. Continue reading ‘THE DEMOCRATS’ BETRAYAL—TWO UNUSUAL TAKES’
Like most global corporate media conglomerates, TIME-Warner (which includes CNN) is unrelenting in its promotion of war and idealization of military duty. A new Nuremberg should one day include media barons and their top hirelings as defendants for high crimes against humanity.
BY JOHN STEPPLING // DIALOGUES FROM VOXPOP
Editor’s Note: Our special blog on culture and politics — and countless other topics— VOXPOP uses a dialog format between its co-editors, Guy Zimmerman and John Steppling, both playwrights. This is just one of many excerpts from what is truly a unique public epistolary.
Guy—
The entire MoveOn.org ad spectacle was a perfect example of both the trivializing of American politics, and of the seemingly endless adoration this society has for the military. It was also yet another blow to free speech. The erosion of the first amendment (and the second, and the….) is now at critical mass. Is there any free speech anymore? Well, only in a prescribed fashion, in limited less than public ways. The mantra of this worship of authority and militarism is “support the troops”. I will say again, no, I don’t support the goddamn troops. I feel compassion for those young men and women foolish enough (and economically coerced enough) to join up, but I don’t support them. Continue reading ‘The Worship practice of our new Mortuary Cult’
BY SUSAN ROSENTHAL Dateline: July 21, 2007
Alienation and dissociation reinforce each other to create a cycle of social powerlessness. In The Hidden Injuries of Class, a worker ponders this dilemma.
“The more a person is on the receiving end of orders, the more the person’s got to think he or she is really somewhere else in order to keep up self-respect. And yet it’s at work that you’re supposed to ‘make something’ of yourself, so if you’re not really there, how are you going to make something of yourself?” Continue reading ‘Alienation and Dissociation: The Two Sides of Powerlessness’
“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
Continue reading ‘The State Dept.’s Murderous Guardians’
Nader, controversial, especially to the “Anybody But Bush” crowd who continue to scapegoat him as the main factor that “lost” the election in 2000, despite a huge amount of evidence that Gore ran a lackluster campaign and finally the election was stolen, is still a powerful reminder of how far this republic has to travel before it begins to live up to its own image.
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. Continue reading ‘Where Are the Lawyers of America?’
“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. Continue reading ‘The Bush-Aznar tapes: glimpse of a gangster preparing for war’
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. Continue reading ‘America in Crisis, Part II: The Liberal Challenge and the Prospects for Socialism’
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. Continue reading ‘America in Crisis, Part I: Class Conflict’
Editor’s Note: Many liberals and people on the left have grown accustomed to invoking the word “Fascism” when defining just about any oppressive regime that restricts civil liberties, assaults workers’ organizations, or does the bidding for the rich. Unfortunately, there is a broad spectrum of rightwing authoritarian regimes that also do just that, without being, technically speaking, “Fascist.” In fact, both rightwing military dictatorships and fascism have similar class programs, the repression of labor being a top priority, and a number of other overlapping features, but the distinguishing trait of a genuine fascist regime is not just its reactionary, fiercely anti-communist character, but the fact that it rests on a one-party state with a mass base usually drawn from the petit bourgeoisie and the lower middle class. Fascism is therefore a type of rightwing mass movement feeding off of racism, fierce chauvinism, often malignant nativism (as manifested, for example, in anti-semitism), and grandiose warmongering goals. The essay below, by renowned political analyst Michael Parenti, clarifies and expands many of these points. But before we go there, consider what Benito Mussolini himself had to say about the nature of fascism: Continue reading ‘FASCISM: A FALSE REVOLUTION’
