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(5 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 16, 2013 Why The "All Government Is Bad" Movement -- Is Bad
Almost every day, members of Congress, that much-maligned institution, are actually proposing measures to deal with real problems that affect our well-being, and employees of federal agencies are working to establish rules and procedures to implement those measures. We believe strongly that the government apparatus must represent us.
(3 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 5, 2012 Obama: "Yes, I'm in a Can"
To stay in the game, he must to some degree play the game the way it is being played. But he can howl hard about how unhappy he is with it. And he can speak directly about ways in which as a second-termer he is going to lead the charge in fundamentally challenging the corruption.
(5 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 11, 2012 The Post-Election Project: The Establishment Pillories Susan Rice
Beyond Milbank's point that the Clintonites don't like Rice for perceived transgressions and indignities, they probably also would prefer that Hillary not be followed by another woman who might outshine her in concrete diplomatic breakthroughs, of which there have been not so many thus far under Obama.
SHARE Tuesday, October 2, 2012 Oil Companies Bribing Gulf States To Ignore Spill?
Recently, Gulf area legislators have been pushing to get their states a larger share of government income from offshore drilling. We're told that they need the extra revenue to improve flood protection. We don't have a media that can afford to just tell it to us straight -- in such a way as to make us care, and make us want to actually do something about it.
(3 comments) SHARE Friday, October 21, 2011 Obama And Interventionism (Everywhere)
The US's mandate abroad, both stated and internally understood, is to advance the American "national interest." Humanitarianism should perhaps be a legitimate goal, yet in reality it almost never is. But wherever US troops go, valuable minerals and other resources, and the interests of large American corporations, aren't far away.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 13, 2012 "Smart ALECs" Get Their Due
It's clear that the corporations' reaction is no more than a public relations move in the face of a scorching hot controversy. It's too steamy in that particular kitchen. For now. The reality is that many big corporations just looove ALEC. In fact, they are ALEC. ALEC is a front for corporate capital and its corrupting influence on the democratic process.
(1 comments) SHARE Monday, February 11, 2013 US Media Double Standard -- On Uprisings In Syria And Uprisings In...The US
we must be very, very suspicious about the enthusiasm which the American establishment exhibits for rebellion abroad -- very selectively, only in certain countries, and not in others. Either we want real democracy and freedom of expression, or we don't.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, April 2, 2012 How War Reporting in Syria Makes a Larger Conflict Inevitable
If indeed the Syrian government is arming one group in the country, that is because the government is besieged -- and those being armed are members of the same minority sect as the ruling Assad clan. Syria managed for decades without internecine warfare. It is the uprising itself that has massively exacerbated animosity and fear between religious groups.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, November 10, 2012 Meanwhile, Back In The Middle East...
That Panetta would announce the deployment of American troops in the fall of 2012 just as the nation was distracted by the presidential horserace is significant. In fact, American troops have been operating out of the same Jordanian base for almost a year and a half, a tell-tale sign of the West's direct involvement in supporting if not creating the Syrian uprising in the first place.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 21, 2012 So Pa, So Good ... But Must Activists Always Align With Corporations to Win?
Indefinite detention of citizens, even the remote threat of it, is surely as important a threat to our liberties as legislation that curtails our freedom to use copyrighted material on the Internet. Yet what corporations were troubled enough to join the ACLU and other liberties groups in opposing NDAA?
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, August 10, 2013 New Obama Disclosure Block
Washington's hunger to know everything about its citizens seems to be matched only by its reticence in revealing its own activities to its citizens. The latest move to prevent us from knowing what is going on relates to so-called transparency policies whose fine print instead does the opposite -- by effectively blunting the stated intent of the regulations.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, September 5, 2012 For Hayward, BP Stands For "Back In Play"
Wealthy Turks are horning in on the Iraq oil situation. Could the desire to evict the Assad regime and install a Western-friendly regime, with the likely military bases there, be driven, in part, by a desire to keep watch over those valuable oil properties in Iraq?
SHARE Thursday, October 18, 2012 Unstacking The Deck: The Status Quo, Third Parties, And You
We have had times in this country when the differences between two nominees were openly asserted and clear to all. Think Richard Nixon and George McGovern, or Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. We no longer have that -- perhaps because the two parties know not to nominate anyone with too distinctive a set of views.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, January 15, 2014 Benghazi: Cover-Up By Both Parties?
The continued finger-pointing between the GOP and the Obama Administration over "what really happened in Benghazi" may be obscuring a much more disturbing narrative -- a story in neither party's interest. Sometimes, to be sure, such events as the Benghazi "uprising" are as they appear: spontaneous acts of anger and passion. But often enough, there is more to the story.
SHARE Saturday, December 22, 2012 Connecting The Dots On Syria: Fooling Enough Of The People Enough Of The Time"
Let's think about this logically. The president of Syria is struggling to stay in power and he's looking to attack other countries? Countries far stronger than he is? Countries whose allies would immediately retaliate against Assad, guaranteeing he would be driven from power and probably killed?
(2 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 1, 2012 Only "Lone Wolves" Commit Terror?
The use of deadly "false flag" operations to gain strategic political advantage is not exclusive to regimes of any particular ideology. The lone wolves, meanwhile, are certainly out there, but they're not all as solitary as they might appear.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, August 29, 2012 Syria: We Can Learn A Lot From The "Small Stuff"
Who is responsible for this descent into chaos? We are. Our taxes and our government fuel the revolt in Syria, and so, whether or not we might feel the revolt itself worthy of support, we ought to at least acknowledge that the crime wave and attendant terror did not just happen, nor was it caused by the Assad regime.
(1 comments) SHARE Friday, April 29, 2016 How The New York Times Helped Hillary Hide The Hawk
Clinton's principal reason to claim she is so qualified to be president -- aside from being First Lady and senator -- is her four years as Secretary of State. What kind of a legacy did she leave? Perhaps her principal role was to push for military engagement -- more soldiers in existing conflicts, and new wars altogether.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 8, 2013 READ THIS -- Our Common Wealth: The Hidden Economy That Makes Everything Else Work
Throughout the United States and the world, we see examples of innovations in the commons, from the opening of downtown public spaces to the spread of farmers markets to the enlivening of neighborhoods where families voluntarily tear down back fences to create larger shared spaces.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, July 13, 2011 Two Million Dead -- Now What's That South Sudan Independence About?
Those "freedom-lovers" in the USA who -- starting under Bush -- made the South Sudanese cause a priority, also managed, as a side by-product, to wrest more oil from largely-hostile hands into friendly ones.