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Police State Public Education in America
by Stephen Lendman
Democracy requires an educated citizenry. America's founders believed it was insurance against loss of liberty.
Jefferson said “(e)very government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render them safe, their minds must be improved…”
Public education is vital because it serves the public interest - giving meaning to “we the people.” Father of American education Horace Mann called “(t)he common school...the greatest discovery ever made by man.” He meant public, not privatized, prioritizing profits over teaching. He believed all students should be educated equally and responsibly.
In America today, they’re intimidated, persecuted and controlled, not taught the way young people were when I grew up in inner city Boston from kindergarten in 1939 to my 1952 high school graduation.
Then college and graduate school when both were extremely affordable, extraordinarily cheap by today’s standards. America’s student loan racket didn’t exist - debt-entrapping millions of students repressively, some facing a lifetime of debt bondage.
Putin Straight Talk
by Stephen Lendman
He’s refreshingly forthright and straightforward - saying what he means and meaning what he says. Compare him with Obama:
● a serial liar with no credibility, disgracing the office he holds, heading a neocon-infested administration, waging war on humanity at home and abroad;
● a war criminal belonging in prison;
● nominally heading a police state apparatus, spying on everyone without just cause;
● operating the world’s largest gulag, a global enterprise filled with political prisoners;
serving monied interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary people, suffering from forced-fed austerity;
● systematically destroying America’s social contract; thirdworldizing the nation, leaving tens of millions impoverished, unemployed or underemployed, food insecure, with growing numbers homeless;
● responsible for making America the world’s leading pariah state, universally reviled for good reason.
On October 22, Putin addressed the Valdai International Discussion Club’s (VIC) 12th annual meeting. The conference’s theme was “Societies Between War and Peace: Overcoming the Logic of Conflict in Tomorrow’s World.” Experts from 30 countries participated from October 19 - 22.
State Terror or Capitalist Terror, Military Coup or Capitalist Coup
James Petras
Introduction
Democratic critics of military seizures of power commonly refer to them as military coups. They adopt a very narrow and misleading conception of what is taking place.
Likewise, human rights activists and progressive analysts who conceptualize the reign of violence which follows, a ‘coup’ as state terror fail to take account of the systemic forces – the capitalist social order and class relations – which determine the classes which wield state power. They ignore the specific classes and groups which are targeted and which classes direct and benefit from terror.
Israel Assaults, Kidnaps and Kills Palestinian Journalists
by Stephen Lendman
Israel wants information about its war on Palestine suppressed - terrorizing an entire population, new killings reported daily since October 1 alone, thousands wounded or otherwise harmed, hundreds kidnapped and imprisoned, brutalized in confinement - supported by Arab-hating propaganda.
The Jerusalem Post disgracefully claimed “(c)ontinued attacks leave Israelis fighting for their lives.” The Times of Israel headlined a Palestinian allegedly saying “I want to stab a Jew.”
Haaretz and other Israeli media feature daily claims about alleged, mostly fabricated, stabbings of Jews by Palestinians - at the same time virtually ignoring Netanyahu’s killing machine. Mass murder and extreme brutality against defenseless Arabs go unreported.
Israel’s Reign of Terror Continues Unabated
by Stephen Lendman
Three weeks of state-sponsored violence left 53 Palestinians murdered (including 11 children), over 2,000 injured by live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets or security force beatings, 5,500 needing treatment for toxic tear gas inhalation, and nearly 900 arrested.
Detainees undergo grueling interrogations, violent beatings and other forms of torture and abuse.
Numerous Palestinian homes are being violently entered daily pre-dawn - occupants terrorized, children traumatized, possessions ransacked, damaged and stolen, family members arrested on phony charges or none at all.
No Shame for U.S. 2003 Invasion of Iraq? The Meaning of This.
Eric Zuesse
Germany was ashamed of having invaded Poland under a false pretext, etc.; but the U.S. is not ashamed of having secretly overthrown Iran’s democracy in 1953 and of having installed dictatorship there; nor of having invaded Iraq and created Iraq’s civil war in 2003, etc. (there are many such examples). America’s failure to prosecute George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for the invasion of Iraq is the most stunning evasion of basic democratic accountability, and raises the question of whether all that’s necessary in order to be a ‘democratic’ dictator in the United States isto lie enough to fool enough people long enough, so as to be able to make it to one’s grave with no criminal record, even if one has, in fact, raped the country that one had led, not to mention destroyed the lives of victims of that country, such victims as the citizens of Iraq.
The soldiers in the American invasion of Iraq aren’t to blame for their invasion — they believed their leaders’ lies, just as did the rest of the U.S. population (and polls show that most Republicans in America still do — e.g., see this and this — they still believe the lies).
Solidarity in Moscow Against US-Supported Terrorism
by Stephen Lendman
Obama and neocons infesting Washington bear full responsibility for Middle East violence, instability, chaos and genocide. Likeminded lunatics in Israel, Britain, other NATO partners and regional rogue states share it.
Putin is the preeminent world leader for peace, stability, respect for nation-state sovereignty, multi-world polarity, and inviolability of international law principles.
The alternative is endless wars of aggression leading to a possible global confrontation involving nuclear weapons. The unthinkable is more threatening now than at any time in the post-WW II era - far more serious than during the 1962 missiles of October crisis. Kennedy later explained he “never had the slightest intention of” attacking or invading Cuba. He wanted all US troops out of Vietnam. He called for ending the Cold War, abolishing nuclear weapons, a “general and complete disarmament,” and Washington no longer using its might to force Pax Americana on other world nations.
America’s Corrupted Political Process
by Stephen Lendman
America’s political process is too corrupted and dysfunctional to fix. Democracy is pure fantasy. Money-controlled duopoly power rules. People have no say whatever.
All candidates march to the same drummer, differences among them too minor to matter, Republicans interchangeable with Democrats, in lockstep on issues mattering most, their agendas belying their rhetoric.
Campaigning involves delivering prepackaged, prescripted demagogic sound bites, catchy one-liners, slogans and other rehearsed rhetoric - stringing together enough phony promises to gain popular support.
No matter how often voters are fooled, they’re easy marks to be deceived again. Jimmy Carter calls America’s process “one of the (world’s) worst…because of the excessive influx of money.”
The US is the only country where campaigning never ends. Fundraising is constant. House and Senate incumbents spend hours daily on “call time” - the amount spent calling prospective donors plus “strategic outreach” face-to-face meetings.
Ban Ki-moon’s Disgraceful Visit to Israel
by Stephen Lendman
He appeared on the same rostrum with serial killer Netanyahu, smiling, shaking hands, showing solidarity with his war on Palestine, murdering defenseless victims daily, terrorizing an entire population.
Ban showed support, instead of forthrightly denouncing his ruthlessness. He and Netanyahu met behind closed doors - plotting Israel’s next moves, pretending he cares about Palestinian lives and welfare.
His visit was an exercise in photo op deception, doing nothing to alleviate Palestinian suffering, save lives, and support their liberating struggle. In nearly nine years as UN Secretary-General (since January 1, 2007), Ban never once did anything to help them, largely silent while Israel continues to brutalize them, collectively punishing them for not being Jewish, especially Gazans blockaded and isolated under lawless siege.
NYT Justifies US Afghan Hospital Bombing
Stephen Lendman
Almost daily, The Times finds new ways to disgrace itself. Instead of full and accurate reporting, it fronts for imperial lawlessness - making it complicit with high crimes of war and against humanity.
Its administration and Pentagon press release “journalism” is an open cesspool of misinformation, distortion and Big Lies - all propaganda all the time on issues mattering most.
Its latest willful deception headlines “Hospital Attack Fueled by Units New to Kunduz,” saying: “The American airstrike against a Doctors Without Borders hospital in northern Afghanistan…was approved by American Special Operations Forces normally assigned to other parts of Asia.”
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