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RIP: America's Anti-War Movement
by Stephen Lendman
On August 8, the libertarian Reason Foundation (RF) asked about the absence of anti-war sentiment in America, saying:
"The Obama administration is on pace to have more American soldiers killed in" Iraq and Afghanistan than Bush did in his first term.
Besides the shocking number of injuries, permanent impairments, physical trauma, and record number of suicides because of lengthy repeated deployments, iCasualties.org listed 630 Afghan deaths from 2001 through 2008 under Bush.
No true justice for the West Memphis Three
Mary Shaw
On August 19, three men walked out of prison in Arkansas after spending nearly 20 years behind bars for a triple murder that they maintain they did not commit. The crime involved the brutal killing of three eight-year-old boys.
Damien Echols had been on death row for the murders. Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin were both serving life sentences. They had been nicknamed the "West Memphis Three".
Their first big break came in 2007, when new forensic evidence showed that the DNA from the crime scene did not match any of the defendants. After four years of appeals, a plea agreement was reached by which the three would enter Alford pleas in exchange for having their sentences reduced to time served. Under an Alford plea, a defendant can assert his innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to obtain a conviction.
TRIPOLI ON THE CUSP
Franklin Lamb Tripoli, Libya Update
“NATO rebels”
Truth be told, some foreign observers, and certainly this one, having been based in Tripoli the past nearly eight weeks, have not taken very seriously occasional media predictions that Tripoli might soon be invaded by “NATO rebels” and certainly not by NATO country forces putting their boots on the ground.
The reasons include observations that the Libyan population is increasingly expressing anger over members of their families and tribes being killed by NATO sorties claiming to be “protecting civilians.”
The Dark Night - Murdoch Credibility and Revenues Vanishing
by Michael Collins
Transitory omnipotence mistaken for eternal dominance.
The House of Commons committee investigating Rupert Murdoch’s United Kingdom media properties released new evidence this week. The evidence elaborates on themes generated at the committee hearing of July 19 and adds new information to the toxic brew that threatens to drown the largest media company in the world. (Images: Hubert Burda Media, L, World Economic Forum)
At the July 19 hearing of the House of Commons Media, Sport and Culture Committee (Commons committee), Member of Parliament (MP) Tom Watson asked both Rupert and his son James Murdoch if either was aware of the “for Neville” memo concerning the 2008 phone hacking settlement by the News of the World (NoW). The Murdoch paper’s on-staff private detective, Glenn Mulcaire, was caught tapping the voicemail of Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association.
The Ideology of the Loser–Is Not a Winning Strategy
By Peter Chamberlin
The more that we observe our fellow man, the more obvious it becomes that humanity is unable to understand the problems that it causes for itself. If humans do not have the intellectual capacity to recognize most of their problems as being self-generated, then they are obviously incapable of correcting any of these life-threatening obstacles to the progression of mankind’s advancement, on their own. Leaving intellectually inferior beings in charge of the safety of the human race in the middle of an epochal historical confluence of multiple calamities is an existential form of negligence. The survival of the race requires that ways be found to institute a more capable decision-making process in the halls of power.
In Defense of the Mexican People: The Campesina’s Grass Roots Response to the Disaster of NAFTA and Illegal CIA Intervention In the Affairs of Mexico
By Mike Harris
In my recent article, I promoted a shift to an aggressive US foreign policy with Mexico. A change is drastically needed. The continuing failures of US Policy are punishing both the citizens of the USA and the citizens Mexico, who in my opinion are suffering greatly from US interventions in the domestic affairs of Mexico.
Let us examine in this discussion the effects of US Policies on the lives of those who are directly affected the most, the people of Mexico. The business interests in the USA have been displeased with and wary of the Government of Mexico since the nationalization of the oil industry, by President Cardenas in 1938. The result was that the 7 sisters, the seven very large US oil companies who lost their substantial investment in the developing Mexican oil industry, were furious and vowed revenge upon President Cardenas and Mexico.
Barack Obama and the Evil of the Two Lessers
By Larry Pinkney
Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief. - Frantz Fanon
When ideology trumps reality what remains is insanity.
The Democrat and Republican parties are two peas from precisely the same pod, and as the perpetuators of a system based upon human greed rather than human need, they incessantly engage in fake skirmishes with one another that serve to perpetuate a corrupt, unjust, corporate-dominated, fear and war-driven emaciated nation and economy. Thus, the masses of ordinary, everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in the United States, are held as perpetual political and economic hostages by the systemic evils of the two lessers, i.e. the Democrat and Republican parties (and their allies).
It's the Free Trade, Stupid
By Ian Fletcher
One point that seems largely to have been missed in recent weeks, amid all the excitement over the Federal budget and the sovereign-debt crises in Europe, is how free trade is largely the root cause of all these problems. Let’s trace the causation for a minute.
Start with the Federal budget. Federal revenues are derived from the underlying economy, and therefore, if the underlying economy were larger, revenues would be, too—even without any tax increases. As a result, anything that causes the U.S. economy to be smaller, tends to widen any gap between taxes and revenues.
Enter free trade.
Rick Perry: Extremist White America's Evangelical Hope
by Stephen Lendman
Consider the unpalatable 2012 options, a choice between:
-- a so far unopposed lawless/crime boss/militarist/pro-war/anti-populist president; and
-- a rogue's gallery of Republican aspirants, looking more like a police lineup than legitimate candidates for any office, let alone the nation's highest - with one exception, Ron Paul, ignored by America's media for the following reasons:
Dispatch From Libya, Tripoli on the Cusp
By FRANKLIN LAMB
Tripoli
Truth be told, some foreign observers, and certainly this one, having been based in Tripoli the past nearly eight weeks, have not taken very seriously occasional media predictions that Tripoli might soon be invaded by “NATO rebels” -- though not by NATO country forces putting their boots on the ground.
The reasons include observations that the Libyan population is increasingly expressing anger over members of their families and tribes being killed by NATO sorties claiming to be “protecting civilians.”
It is said by many here that tens of thousands are ready to repulse invaders who try to enter Tripoli. Support for Colonel Kaddafi appears to reflect even Western polls such as the one referred to by the UK Guardian recently that Libya’s leader Colonel Gadaffi’s popularity had perhaps doubled during the current conflict. This morning’s Rasmussen poll claims that support for NATO-US involvement has plummeted to just 20 per cent among the American public due to among other reasons, NATO killing of civilians. It is even lower in several other NATO countries.
Until quite recently, life appeared fairly normal except for the scarcity of benzene for vehicles and some luxury food items and also some necessities such as baby formula, some medicines and reliable phone service. Earlier piles of household trash that began accumulating at some street corners around Tripoli in early March when up to 400,000 foreign workers fled West to Tunisia and East to Egypt began being cleared a couple of weeks ago as the municipality of Tripoli reorganized its severely and instantly depleted work force.
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